


L'amor che move i sole e l'altre stelle...

by BriarRosesAndThorns



Series: ~ L'amor che move i sole e l'altre stelle ~ [1]
Category: Exalted (Roleplaying Game), La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
Genre: Abyssal Exalted, Adventure & Romance, Artists, Eventual Romance, Exalted 2nd Edition, Exalted 3rd Edition, F/M, Lunar Exalted, Other, Post-Usurpation, Quests, Romance across Centuries, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Solar Exalted, Solar-Lunar Bond, Story within a Story, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BriarRosesAndThorns/pseuds/BriarRosesAndThorns
Summary: This work updates as often as classes allow :DChapter One:Spoilers, I Guess?Virgil meets Sonnet, old feelings and magics are reawakened; wIll telling the story of how they met help her remember him?





	1. Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona

**Author's Note:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

**_Once upon a time you were my everything_ **

**_It’s clear to see that time hasn’t changed a thing_ **

**_So just what do you think could ever take you off my mind?_ **

 

 

**_Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark_ **

**_For the straightforward pathway had been lost._ **

 

 

 

          There is a woman following him, who keeps running her shins into his tail. He can’t fault her for this because it is invisible, after all; but she doesn’t seem to be learning from the experience and that he does find fault with. Even with these crowds.

          This competition drew all sorts into the city. Mortals congregating beyond reckoning, either here for the race or the celebration. Fairfolk with reality rippling like a mirage around them - unknowable how many of those there are. Some Dragonblooded, in elemental pentads, family teams, or with coteries of mortals. Other Lunars, mostly in packs; seeing him, they wait for more in his party before scrutiny turns to suspicion or curiosity when it’s clear he’s running the challenge alone. The few who are also lone in the crowd nod in passing before moving to find friends or other Exalts to form teams.

          A settling sense of disorientation comes from the heavens; he stops, perplexed (the woman behind nearly falls again, swears and finally moves around him). Head and shoulders above the rest, faces blur under his gaze, except — there, those women talking on a bench. Something nearly familiar, but... The one facing him shifts and her gaze tracks across his for a moment, livid color flaring at her brow where her caste mark might show - Undead. Like as not denizens of Hell both alike. Here for the prize, providing a presence of darkness which the others feel, causing all to falter, to move themselves far away from them. The embarassing loophole in Luna’s code of survival at all odds; why wither in a failed vessel? Better to just stay dead, let the cycle of reincarnation take place and start again. He would avoid them as well, given the choice. So why this almost feeling?

          It must be nothing. One of the Fairfolk having a go at him in his relative isolation. A couple dart in front of him startling him from his considerations, the boy dragged along laughing while his lover runs lightly through the crowd. On his other side, a panther-eared Lunar ghosts past him, his friend a shadow beside. His friend who, when the light hides him a moment later, reveals himself Solar.

          His throat tightens. The Solars are returning. They have begun to come back. The sins of the past, the mistakes — all was to be set in motion a second time. There would be no failure, no -

          This time, grief stays at bay managed by a near desperate hope. The prize for this race is a wish, unlimited. An unlimited wish can atone. An unlimited wish can set everything right again. It will set all to rights.

          That sense of disorientation while turning away; what is causing that? Not Fairfolk, as he searches for it. It’s the Hellborn. One of them causing this, or perhaps Fate herself is telling him to look again for reasons hidden close to her breast. He pushes past three stalls and a group of Sun-chosen —  _why are there suddenly so many here?_

          The dead woman sees him again, gestures to her friend do you know him? and her friend turns to see. Skin so white it is salt and nearly prismatic, dead and lovely enough to turn heads as some of them are, eyes like fresh, wet blood, seeing him as stranger. But the shape of her face - mirrored memory reincarnated in flesh.

          Destiny’s compass settles.

Impatience claws into his throat, sets his heart racing. It’s her. No moments of dashed dreaming, this time. It’s her, but why is she so pale? Why doesn’t she at least recognize him? Anger he would have expected, disappointment, or betrayal, or anything but not just...

          He pushes past the first man easily. He must have been following her here, but for how long? How long had that kindly, gentle pull been guiding him, that this preordained meeting might take place? But while Fate has been kind enough to let him see, she now teases him by closing the crowd between and when he looks up from passing by a mother with her three small children she’s gone. Her friend is staring at him, tiny and militant, the three piece suit perfectly straight and smooth. He comes out the side of the crowd close to her, tastes the air.

          Death and ink on this one.

          Death and white roses lingering.

          “Who are you?” this dead one snaps. “What are you doing here?”

          “Where did she go?” he asks, trying to find that feeling of needled-North.

          “She didn’t want to talk to a random stalker. Why are you looking for her?”

          The feeling still diffuse. Out of practice. Fate would never tease him this way, needlessly; he just has to breathe and let it guide him again. It’s only right that this moment would finally come; it wouldn’t have been proper to meet her again in front of this one. This one is shrill. The suit is at odds with the weapon he can see now, a bone scythe rotating at the end. Typical weapon of the undead. Her briefcase is beside her. It’s likely just as full of nasty surprises. This wouldn’t be the way She would want to begin again, so of course she isn’t here anymore.

          “Hey! I’m talking to you here!”

          “I don’t care. I’m not looking for you, I’m-” There. A elucidating caress and the wind change.

          “Hey!” The hellspawn small enough to push aside regardless of weapon.

          An alleyway, dark and muddy and made of stone, mazelike; and another, and there she is again. She’s leaned her back against the wall, hair rippling loose now in a curtainy cascade of black, longer than he remembered. It’s to the ground, glossy and dark like obsidian. It had been lighter, then.

          Soreness in his throat. Stress tensing the vocal chords. Words escaping him as they always have.

          “Hey - Hi. Can— can we talk?” _Smooth. How long? Thousands of years to think of the perfect thing to say, and yet again reduced to a child’s vocabulary._

          “And what ought I to say to an unknown man who has followed me through the opening festivities to corner me in an alley?” The voice is wrong. Even when she was losing herself, she had never sounded so... bitter. Something as unsettling to his ears as the heavy sickening honey in her scent, as her skin in his sight. But despite all of these things, all the clear reasons this can’t be her, fate can’t be wrong. Then again, time has changed him. Why wouldn’t it change her also? It could be okay. It could be good. Why try to find fault? It’s her. It’s actually _her_.

          “Look. I just want to talk to you. That’s all.”

          “Charmed, I’m sure. I’m not particularly interested in what you want. I’m leaving; find someone else to corner.” Wrong smile, too tight, and wrong movement, tossing her hair aside. He can follow, perhaps out of the alley she’ll be willing to at least entertain the idea, or he can make her friend tell him where to meet her under less complicated circumstances and explain —

          She falls. Trips on stone, or air, or nothing. As reflex he catches her with his tail wrapped around her chest, same as always after several lifetimes’ absence. The netted and twisted up controlled guilt slips loose and he can’t walk away.

          “Please, just hear me out. I need you —” don’t stop there, idiot,” I need you to listen. I know you. We knew each other a very long time ago, and-”

          “Oh, truly? Set me down, then; shall I listen while you remind me when?” Levelly asked, but mocking all the same. He lets go when he’s certain she’s steady on her feet again. She doesn’t seem to be able to see his tail, as she once had, and he doesn’t want her to fall again.

          “You-”

          “Yes?” Her eyes widen ever so slightly. “I?”

          “We - we were close - do you really not remember any of it?”

          “We’re very close now,” she purrs, her hand on his chest, pressing her advantage as he tries to think how to answer. “Very close.” There’s a glint of metal and the very slightest movement of her fingers, to give him warning; it’s enough, after years of being hunted, for him to catch her other wrist before she can drive the sharpened kanzashi into his neck or heart. He isn’t entirely sure if she herself knows which she had been trying for, but she hadn’t dropped the smile until the moment that the metal fell from her fingers.

          “I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says, coiling his tail around her again so that he doesn’t have to hold her wrists. “I swear on my life. Please. Let me explain. I just need you to listen. That’s all.”

          Quiet as she considers him. Her fingers wrapped around one wrist as if it hurt; he can feel the chill her skin left against his palm and even more worrying the absence of a heartbeat or blood flowing in her arteries. Her stillness absolute.

          A roar from the crowds outside. Opening rituals must be beginning, but what could a wish matter now? she is here, even if she doesn’t remember, and even the subtle suspicion of wrongness (none of the other Solars had returned this way) can’t stifle the jubilant panic of his heart.

          “Very well,” she says. “I will hear you. You will explain to me how it is that you think you know me. But I will not do it here. I know alleyways very well, but I prefer to watch the people who will act as a safeguard against any further untoward behavior. Is this amenable? Or will you continue to hold me here against my will?”

          A ghost; _I ordered you thus; how then do you manifest such a desire against my will?_

          “Of course,” he says, and uncoils. “Please, lead the way. I will go wherever you are most at ease.”

          A harsh laugh, but it sounds of amusement instead of pain or anger. “I sincerely doubt that. Tell me your name. We will at least be strangers no more when Hearts asks me about you.”

          Shedding the name others used like an old skin, he smiles, a tiny space of relief fitting to open his ribs. “You always called me Virgil.”

          “How interesting.” The edged smile graces her face again, though it still doesn’t reach her eyes. “I have never entertained a Virgil before.”

          They reach the end of the alley. She glances down, wipes the smallest smudge from the white brocade of her outermost kimono, and twists her hair up, knotting it four times before driving the kanzashi through the center to hold her hair away from her face. The movements are practiced, controlled; he sees her shoulder blades move, finds it strange to see her like this. Bared skin beyond propriety. So nearly vulnerable, raw sensuality as obvious entrapment. He looks away, sees others in the crowd who can’t seem to, staring slack-jawed as she glides through the people like a pale shark through a reef.

          “They all would do whatever I asked.” she comments lightly, over her shoulder. “Was that true for your mistress then as well?”

          “Yes,” he says, slight unease returning despite his best efforts.

          But all she answers is, “Fascinating.”

          Children dart through the crowd tossing glowing orbs back and forth. Moments later, a youth with a messenger bag appears, handing out inert orbs that flare to life when a bystander touches them.

          The youth offers one to him; “Would you care for one, my lord?”

          “Whatever are these for?” she asks, turning to the messenger.

          “They’re part of the contest, my lady...” the boy trails off when he turns to her, breath nearly audibly escaping his lungs. Her smile has grown dazzling, a shadowy darkness like a cloud overhead causing her to light up all the more. She steps close to him, takes his hands in hers. “You were going to offer one for myself as well, were you not?”

          The boy nods, slowly, the pulse in his throat leaping; swallows and licks his lips in answer to the full intent of her attention. The messenger bag shifts lower on his shoulder.

          She drops her voice conspiratorially and standing beside her, he hears claws in wet silk. “But you want me to take the prize more than any of the others, don’t you.” 

          The boy nods again, relaxed and enticed. He isn’t even sure the boy even hears the rest of the crowd.

          “You could give your bag to me. I won’t tell. And you could say you’d given them all away, which isn’t even untrue. Would you do that, for me?”

          The boy smiles, nodding, takes the bag from his shoulder and gives it to her. “If ever you need luck, my lady, I know it will come to aid you.”

          “Sweet boy. Run along now, we wouldn’t want anyone else to know our little secret.”

          The boy takes off running, crashes headlong into a vendor’s tent pole and stands there dazed while the keeper and his child berate him.

          He looks back to her, but she’s already turned her back, the same calm gliding taking her away from the scene and back to her bench.

          “But-” he starts, hesitates watching the boy come to the attention of the small circle of potential customers who move past the tent with murmurs about the clumsiness, the overreaction, or the scene caused.

          “You may stay if you like,” she calls, looking over her shoulder as gracefully as any masterwork of sculpture. “I for one have no need. Follow if you will; or don’t.”

          He follows, but when the uncertainty rises again he can’t quite convince himself that all will actually be well.

          She tosses the satchel beneath her seat carelessly, but even when she turns and sits casually every gesture is exquisite. He sits more carefully, trying to think where to start. Being near again is intoxicating. He hasn’t felt so certain, so stable for a very long time. The current of wrongness is strong, but the whole is a reconciliation of fractured pieces and relieving. His lungs fill with air properly again.

          “So.” She draws her fingertips along the wall behind, wrist turned outward and forearm exposed. “Virgil.” She tilts her head, oblique. “You are a Chosen of Luna, yes?”

          “Yes,” he says, startled from the beginning he expected.

          “And your Mistress is dead; but you are not. Was this a recent affair?” It is careless, disinterested in tone.

          “No,” he says, a burning turmoil of questions trying to bubble through. Where to start? “No. She - you - were murdered. A very long time ago, during the Usurpation.” _Where have you been for so long?_

          “Ah yes; the famous Usurpation.” She tosses the word aside, as if it is meaningless. “Ought I suppose that you telling me this is a sign that you were not part of that planning committee? Because it would have been simpler to make another go of protecting the world from dangerous chosen when we were back in the alleyway.”

          “No, I-” She’s enjoying watching the control reassert itself every jab. How quickly she has moved toward implacable needling. _This is just how this conversation will be._ “I was not part of the plans, except as a name on the list to be cleansed.”

          “Yet I take it that your memory is a sign that you escaped. Turned tail and ran. Did she know you’d abandoned her to her fate? To save your own life?”

          His knuckles whiten on the stone, wrapped around the seat. “I didn’t abandon her.” Deep breath. In and out. _Give her nothing more._ “She-You made me leave. You made me run as far as I could from your side, the same as you made that boy give you his bag.”

          She rolls her eyes, leans her head back. “Does that story help you sleep at night, Virgil? That your mistress sent you away?”

          “It’s the truth.”

          “Whatever it is you need to tell yourself. It’s not folly to acknowledge that love leads to loss; it’s fairly universal. Many of your fellows might even ask why you didn’t tear out her throat yourself, since you paint her quite a little nightingale. What was her name?”

          “Beatrice.” Softness, mellowing, a loosening of the coils around the heart.

          “Beatrice?” That stirs her; she turns toward him with some humor lighting her smile towards a grin. “Surely that wasn’t the name Heaven gave her. It’s too... simple, for their tastes.”

          “Sol named her as Dreams of the Empyrean.”

          “There it is.” She leans back against the wall again.

          “What am I to call you?” he asks, trying to level his tone, keep need from creeping in. She would take it for weakness and laugh.

          “Living poetry of a sort; Hearts calls me Sonnet, so why not that? It riddles the thing inside itself, which pleases me, and is simple enough for anyone to commit to memory.” She crosses her legs with a sharp motion. “One hopes, anyway.”

          “Sonnet. Who is Hearts to you?”

          “Hells thaw, will you protect me from companions in honor of your mistress? She is often a friend, though at times an entertaining foe; her name fills a brief, that concise summation of cases won for her master (may he forget where all of his plots begin) and I enjoy the read on a slow morning.”

          “Her master?”

          “You may ask her yourself, I have no interest in spreading word for her for free any more than I have, and I grow tired of this.” Her arm drops from the wall to her lap.

          “Who is your master, then, if not Sol?”

          She lifts her chin. “I serve no _master_. But you are going to have to work much harder at this game if you want any more of an answer to that question.” She sighs. “Tell me who _your_ mistress was, or leave me be. Both, if you must that.”

          “She’s you - or, you’re her - and I’m not like to leave you again.”

          Thoughtfully she turns to regard him again. “Let us assume that I was your late mistress. If I ordered you from me again, now, would you obey?”

          “No.” The emphatic voicing of this truth is irrevocable. Never again.

          “Despite my wishes?”

          “I will not fail you a second time.”

          She sighs, deeply so that the entirety of her chest rises and falls; until now, he realizes, she has not needed to do so when not speaking.

          “Then start at the beginning. Since I will not be rid of you, you will do me the courtesy of explaining what it is I will be compared to.”

          “You were Chosen, before I was-”

          “No. Begin with the day that you met her. Before. We will work from there.”

 

 

 

_**I’ll never forget you - You’ll always be by my side** _

_**From the day that I met you - I knew that I would love you til the day I die** _

_**And I will never want much more** _

_**and in my heart I will always be sure** _

_**I will never forget you** _

_**And you’ll always be by my side** _

_**til the day I die** _

 

 

 

_**I cannot really say how I entered there, so full of sleep was I at the point when I abandoned the true way. But** _

_**when I had reached the foot of a hill, where the valley ended that had pierced my heart with fear,** _

_**I looked on high and saw its shoulders clothed already with the rays of the planet that leads us straight on every path.** _

_**Then was the fear a little quieted that in the lake of my heart had lasted through the night I passed with so much anguish.** _

 

 

 

 

          Elgar gives me a gentle shove out the door. “You’d better get out now. Dad is going to be looking for you any minute. Go to Alec and bring home all of the Black and Gold you can from him for this -” he shoves a pouch at my chest, almost knocking me off the front step “- then run back as fast as you can. They’re going to be here any time so you’d better not screw this up. I’ll tell Dad where you are. Go!”

          He slams the door, and through it I already hear the shouting begin.

          “He just left, Dad! We needed more paint.”

          I crouch under the window, flat against the wall, to pass the open part of the workroom.

          “He didn’t clean your Mother’s shrine, Elgar, how could you let him leave?”

          “I’ll do it for him.”

          “ _He_ needs to work on making the space presentable. You need to work on keeping the business alive. Four generations of hard work is not going to end because my sons can’t keep the household running on a commission day!”

          I’ve heard this one before, so I take off down the street before the lecture can really begin. Elgar won’t truly appreciate the craft the way I can, and we both know it. Even though at eighteen he’s been apprenticed wholly for two years, and at fifteen I’m still running supplies here and there. Elgar has had little interest in finding proper inspiration to “fuel his work”.

          The streets are beginning to bustle even this early; there’s no end of inspiration for a hundred paintings or more, but nothing truly worth my time. A truly talented artist can draw beauty from anything, a kid with his donkey to the old crone cackling out the window at her neighbor, but to find the source of inspiration that requires no draw, no effort, that source of beauty that forces innovation and growth in a sheer effort to capture the slightest margin of grace, which brings the pigments to life and causes all to see the painting to wonder for as long as the canvas holds form - to find that muse, that source of constantly surpassed imagination given form. That is the true purpose of an apprentice. To truly capture the radiance and complexity of such intensity — that is the work of a master.

          “Good morrow, Cailen — do try to run into the corner again, you’ve missed it twice.” Alec is leaning over the counter, watching. His green eyes sparkle like darkened koi ponds, muddied by business and stirred up by humor.

          “It would be beneath my dignity,” I say, abruptly aware now of how close my hip is to the counter.

          He snorts. “It would be beneath your dignity. Of course. So what did they send you for this time? Have you started learning your lists yet, or are we still remembering?”

          No one has time to teach me to read, less now than when Mom was alive. It would be a waste of everyone’s time to send a list to Alec with me, since he can’t read either. But what would reading ever have to do with my painting career? All I need is an ample supplies and my own artistic sensibilities and keen eye for detail. The precise tint and hue, the-

          “Hey, snap out of it, kid. You gonna buy something, or not?” This is probably the third snap. Being the only local merchant who has access to the particular sort of supplies we need, he puts up with my susceptibility to daydreaming.

          “Oh! yeah. I need as much black and gold as you have - no, the lighter gold. And some of those brushes, the ones you just got in. The fine tip ones? from Nexus?"

          “About time,” he says, deftly and swiftly bottling the paints. “Your dad must be making up an important piece if he sent you to spend the extra jade script on my best. Anything you can share?”

          “That he is!” I look about theatrically before leaning in. I have to stand on the tips of my toes to reach across the counter and create the proper effect, but it’s worth it to whisper loud enough for the next person in line to hear, “We’re painting the local royalty, today. As it were. Those uppity folks from Aphelion Manor need to get their daughter to be looking presentable. Or something.” I wave my hand like I’m brushing away the thought. “I heard she never leaves the house. Dad might have to work hard to make this a good one.”

          Alec laughs. “You don’t say. So their family colors are gold and black, right?”

          “That’d explain the need for the paint, so yeah, probably. Why?”

          He shrugs, sets the second bottle of black on the counter, beside the gold. “No particular reason. Only,” he nods his head behind me, “that’d be their palanquin, wouldn’t it?”

          I turn to see the once crowded market street being parted before two groups of four men, casually carrying two palanquins. The long ornate vessels are decorated with all manner of gaudy fixtures, all with the district, popping colors of black and gold. Heavily embroidered curtains hide the occupants from sight.

        _Ignis damn_ , that is definitely Baron Aphelion’s palanquin. And even though running late is commonplace for me, I cannot afford to be late today. Being late now would ruin my father’s reputation among the royals and that would not do well for business...

          “Alec! forget the brushes and just give me my change in jade coin!”

          “You sure, Cailen? These brushes are of the finest craftwork, and if you don’t use them to their fullest potential someone will ruin them for making up their face instead.” The temptation is pouring out of his mouth now, smooth as glass, the softness of the bristles flexing against his fingertip.

          “No- no, no! I need the coin — now please! — I have to be going!” Forget Dad, Elgar will never let me live this down.

          “Fine, fine, get going on then. I have my other customers.” He nods at the woman behind me as he drops the coin into my hand. I sweep the bottles off the counter, shove it into my sack and run. Normally I would be spending my father’s hard-earned jade on supplies. Some for the shop, and a couple extra for my private stash. It isn’t really stealing, so much as an investment in his son’s future studio business. He would probably give me the money if I asked, I know, but it’s just easier to do it this way. Besides. That extra money is about to become real handy.

          Times like these, I am glad to be scrawnier than most. I’m able to squeeze between the commoners who are all tightly packed on the sides to allow the palanquin through; watching with slack-jawed interest in the ornate decorations.

          Once I break to the street, I run alongside and chuck the jade in an arch over the palanquin so that it lands, scattered all over the road in front of the servants. The peasants decorating the sides change their slack-jawed stares into opportunistic greed and turn into a handsy, bent over mob, who grab for every piece of jade they can get.

          As for me, I take this opportunity to mourn the loss of what could have been new fine-tipped brushes and quickly sprint past the huddled masses. The distraught look on Aphelion’s servants is nearly worth the loss of those extra supplies. Perhaps I’ll immortalize this moment later on canvas so that I can look back and remember how dashingly smart I am. With the paints sparingly collected from the artisans in the South which glow in even the slightest light perhaps! Perfect for capturing the moment a deeply noble and clever up-and-coming artist gracefully avoids the responsibility of being shackled to the constraints of time and authority. Perhaps with the sun setting behind me to show the light is always brighter in my direction? Yeah. That’d make me feel better.

          I saunter up to the studio side of the house, winded but victorious, I feel a sense of satisfaction over my own cunning. Even Elgar wouldn’t have been able to get himself out of that spot, and he wouldn’t have done it so well even if he did. I enter the newly-painted door to find my father busily counting his brushes. He must be nervous; that is never good for one’s artistic spirit. Or so I’m told, anyway. He turns and once again I’m caught in his frustration in full force. His eyes are brown as birch wood, lighter now with tension. His brow is all furrowed and his eyebrows scrunched close enough that it nearly looks like a caterpillar trying to creep across a tree trunk.

          “Do you realize what time it is? Your brother and I have been trying to prepare for Aphelion’s portrait, waiting for you to bring crucial supplies back, while your own tasks have been unattended to. This is maddening. Truly maddening.” His pace is stern as he takes the supplies. Elgar behind him rubs his palm down his face. “I swear, if you had been late —”

          “You needn’t swear, master painter; we ran into a rather large gathering on our way here and were delayed. I’m certain it won’t be an issue for you?” Standing in the doorway behind me is a well-dressed woman with a quaint look on her face. Her black and gold clothes scream Aphelion. I really need to try to shut the door more often. My father’s face changes faster than I have ever witnessed from heated anger to polite host before. He must _really_ want this commission.

“Lady Sage, how good to see you! I apologize that you saw that. I was educating my son on the necessary manners of timeliness. Please, come in. There’s tea at the table, and seating for yourself and Her Ladyship.”

          She nods and steps aside, allowing two more newcomers into the workspace. The Lady of the House steps in, covered in stiff gold brocade, with gilded silk in a floating scarf over her arms, and more jewels than could feed us for a year on her fingers, her wrists, and in her hair in clattering strings. Sage offers her a hand as my father and Elgar drop immediately to a full low bow. After a hesitation I remember to as well.

          She sounds bored when she speaks. “You may rise. Aurora, please be careful to listen to what he says; we do want this to be a good portrait of you.” She looks to my father. “Where did you want her to stand?”

          “If the young lady would please come up here behind the gallery, we will ensure the perfect lighting, my Lady. Cailen,” his face and voice are still pleasant, but his eyes are hard. “Why don’t you welcome our guests and then help your brother set up the easel?”

          “Of course, Father,” I turn and bow deeply in the direction of the doorway and the last person to enter, crossing my leg in back for deeper effect. “Welcome to our home. We desire nothing but your satisfaction with our work.” Elgar coughs, and I add on “My lady” a second later than strict politeness demands.          

          Upon aligning myself that I might give her a parting smile, I blind myself in the rays of the sun. She steps from the threshold the slightly dimmer settings and I see her clearly.

          She. Is. Remarkable.

          Gorgeous beyond compare. Her skin shows no sign of blemish or wear and is fairer than I have ever encountered, moon-gold as in the old tales. Truly she is careful to have avoided life’s normal beatings and stayed so well kept. Her hair, pinned up and dark smoothed rippling curling where it escapes braids as dark as burnt oak, held together with threads of pale gauze star-silver, indigoed red, plums at midnight, turquoise as midday, white and blue like truth in the hearts of fires. Her hands, as light and shifting as serpent tongues, quick and precise and ever so delicate against the frozen rest of her body. Her eyelashes as the hollows of the gibbous moon, delineating her gaze with feathered shadows, and — those eyes, oh those eyes! Clearly she is celestial in nature, to contain such storms inside so small a form. She is a contemplative woman, for even at this most important introduction, her thoughts are elsewhere - here, there, as fish in the shallows dart from shadow to shadow. She is taller than me, but not by much. Surely I will grow taller to better accommodate a proper kiss, as I know it to be my destiny to have that pleasure.

          I need her to notice me. I need to know more of her. I need-

          “Cailen! You need to set up the easel, already!” Father buries his fingers into my shoulder, guides me towards the far side of the room. “And for the love of Gaia, at least close your mouth if you must stare,” he hisses into my ear before offering her his hand to lead her to the place in the room where the light converges. It’s a clear reminder that I should focus on my responsibilities for this project, but that is unimportant now.

          What is important is her, my newly discovered muse — soul and substance of everything I desire. I will know more of her.

          Her smile to Father in thanks for his guidance shivers me, but then Elgar, the blind oaf that he is, pulls me from the room.

          “Just a thing.” He takes a breath. “A few things. If you value your skin or our business at all, never let Lord or Lady Aphelion actually see you look at her like that. You’re lucky Father caught you first. And if you ever want me to cover for you again, you will not be late as you were today.” He looks over his shoulder, steps just out of sight behind the door frame and takes a swig of some alcohol he has tucked away; but truly, if he had truly understood, he would not need anything to steady his hand.

          “Not a word,” he warns and turns back. “Oh,” he says, remembering. “You’re making the egg paints today. Dad has then set out for you in the kitchen. I would have helped you make them before they got here but-” he shrugs, “you were late.” And closes the door.

          Hours of grinding and blending portions together later, with my thoughts racing, Elgar comes in with a dry palette and begins to clean his brushes carefully.

          “Does Dad need my help? I have these ready, and the rest is mostly ready to go. I can take your place, I know what I need to do, truly-!”

          “It’s no use,” he says, blandly, setting my teeth on edge. “He saw you earlier and doesn’t want to risk it. It’s for your sake as much as anyone else’s. Not only do you not want her mother to see you, do you really want to present yourself as the kind of idiot who can’t even do his job, or are you going to act professionally? One of those things will bring her back. The other one you’ll likely be beaten for.”

          “Did she see me? Did she say anything?” “No, idiot. She’s talking to her mother in some other language right now. She barely knows father’s there.”

          Of course, she is well-versed and learned as well; her intellect must be very keen to be able to converse in so many tongues. “You have to let me see her again, just for a moment. I won’t make any noise, and I’ll swap you for dinner this week. Please? please-!”

          He sighs. “Dad’s going to kill me. Look, I’ll leave the door open just a hair when I go in. That’s it. Don’t push it, Cailen. Trust me, it’s not worth it. All Court women are out of our league. There’s no way you’re even in the same corner of Creation with that one. Try to just ride this out.”

          He brings back the new paint and true to his word he does leave the door behind himself open.

          Father has said something to make her smile again, but it is likely not the one he intended to see. It’s gone stale now, as she loses interest even in these mundane matters and turns her eyes upon the heavens towards loftier concerns. She fans herself absently, languidly, each movement as discreet as that of a dragonfly’s wing. What must she think?

          “Aurora! Focus,” her mother calls from her seat, and returns to eating a full bowl of summer strawberries with the other woman. How coarse a thing, to detract from heaven-sent contemplations.

          She returns to the present, the smile nearly painted on her face as it will be on canvas soon enough. No doubt my father will claim credit for its accuracy. Her fan rests open but stilled against her waist. But then - ah! Destiny must have whispered to her upon the flittering of necessity, she looks aside herself to the door!

           _She sees me._ I’m nearly faint with momentous portent. She sees, and the very lightest hint of heat along her cheekbones, the slightest tilt of her lips, she smiles at me. Her gaze penetrates to the marrow of my soul before she tears herself away, straightening her shoulders the tiniest amount.

          But how to wrest another such smile from her? It must be a subtle gesture, nothing crude or imperfect. And it must be private, for her eyes and no one else’s.

          I sink down, my back to the door and try to breathe.

          Too soon, far too soon she is excused from her duty and gathered by her hen-like mother and that vinegar-faced servant woman to return home. But even stiff from standing for several hours, she makes her gestures beautiful in simplicity, and while she takes my father’s hand in aid she presses no weight into his palm. The gesture itself she uses as a clever ploy to distract attention while she looks again for me and I feel the solemn sweetness descend into me once more, the fullness of the rays of her smile warming me before she is gone, and the workshop the uglier for her absence.

          Dad is in a much better mood after hours of paint staining his hands and a contract all but irrevocably his. He doesn’t even care when I come to watch him work, sketching swiftly from memory the way the shadows touched her, where the light began. A rough outline, to be given flesh and blood within six months. I can see now that this will never do to adequately express her presence upon the canvas. Even so, Dad is almost as susceptible to dreams as I am and spends a very long time after dark, using the lanterns to provide himself with additional time already towards this project.

          Elgar has to collect both of us for dinner. Father returns immediately to work afterwards, draping silk over the canvas to protect the surface, preparing and testing his brushes, ensuring there is enough paint in every color he might need.

          In our room, I take the paper I’ve saved up and try to put to paper instead the heavens of her gaze, the curve of her brow, the mercurial melting of her expressions and perhaps even capture the smallest ray of her radiance. It’s not good enough. Elgar comes to bed with paint flecks still in his hair. “I thought you might like to know - she’ll be back tomorrow for certain. If you’re very lucky maybe Dad will give you a second chance. Night, Cailen.”

          I shove the papers and charcoal back into the cache and lie on the mattress next to him, staring out the window into the light of the stars, less luminous than her presence, until I fall into dreaming.


	2. Ne ciel che piu de la sua luce prende fu io...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil continues to try to convince Sonnet of the truth of his tale; a memory of Aurora's arises, and Cailen's ingenuity pays off....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

**_Now are you that Virgil, that fountain which spreads forth so broad a river of speech? [31]_ **

 

**_For this beast at which you cry out lets no one pass by her way, but so much impedes him that she kills him; and she has a nature so evil and cruel that her greedy desire is never satisfied, and after feeding she is hungrier than before.” [31]_ **

 

**_No matter how many deaths that I die, I will never forget No matter how many lives I live, I will never regret There’s a fire inside this heart and a riot about to explode into flames Where is your God? Where is your God? Where is your God?_ **

 

****

 

     She smirks. “Such a paragon, at so young an age. Are you certain your view was so unbiased as to be truthful? The eyes of Lovers often are belied with betrayals of truth.”

     He looks out into the crowd, watching the Sun-chosen as they move about. They’re the easiest to pick out of the crowd; the light favors their mood. “You were brilliant, then, but certainly no paragon. Try harder to remember. You can argue your flaws with me then.”

     “It is impossible to remember something that happened to someone else. Is this to become a guessing game?” Something stirs, repressed and mutilated. An awakening, a shard of uncomfortable truth. Hidden from him, she swallows it down, drowns the inclination in darkness. A usual habit, made harder by his presence. She would frown, examine the cause if she were alone. As it is, she shrugs.

     “I do not remember your mistress.”

     An imperfection, a moment of revival, of surrealism, renders this a lie.

 

 

 

     ** _And all along I knew I had something special with you_**

 

**_The time was the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with those stars that were with it when God’s love first set those lovely things in motion.” [29]_ **

 

 

 

     Finally, after hours of hovering and fluttering, and mind-numbing babble about fashion and manners, I am allowed downstairs where Hashi hands me into the palanquin. I find it strange that this is included in his duties as steward; truth be told, I think he may be bending the rules, using some loophole. But I am glad at least that he is here. He slips me an orange unbeknownst to Sage, with a smile, and closes the tapestry curtains.

     If I could ride to the workshop without mussing my clothes I would be much happier, but this is impossible; I must seem perfect, for this painter to capture. I am not certain how much more preparation for perfection I can take.

     It is so frustrating to know that the entire world is outside such thin curtains! and I am carried along like an invalid or a child through town. One is not supposed to peek out to see the commoners, but every time I can I push the brocade just the slightest bit open. I have seen so many people I would love to speak to, to learn from; but I have also seen how they step aside for me and close ranks until a guard shouts at them to let Sage through. My status is a heavier dividing curtain, I suppose. At least the orange tastes sharp.

     When we arrive, Sage nearly rolls out of her palanquin to come and guide me out as if I needed the help. She smooths my hair where it has begun to shift out of place and snatches the orange peel from the cushions. I am certain someone will hear about this later.

     But we are here! The workshop, a test and a surprise all at once.

     What Cailen must think of all of this formality! I would speak to him if I could. Out of everyone, he has been the first truly genuine person I’ve met.

     That first day — there is a warmth in my cheeks and my chest to think of it. I have never felt myself anything but ordinary, and O! Whenever he is in the room, the day is more beautiful. I could stand for months like this if it meant I could talk to him.

     But today, once I have been settled and all the folds of fabric aligned properly for the effect of light and shadow, the master painter excuses himself; his eldest son takes up the brush. There is no sign of Cailen.

     The sigh that escapes me meets with Sage’s disapproval of course. But the window is nice; a different set of things to see than at home. Living here with the neighbors so close beside, their wall pitted enough that one could creep onto the rooftops in the night, with no one about. Breathing nightening wind-whispers, seeing the world bend toward sleep. Mice in woven-grass balled up nests, owls with lemon sour faces flying overhead, tyrant lizards and long-limbed wolves in the long grass and in the trees. My house, and the town from far away, must all be lit with brilliant starlit, starlike people and their lanterns passing through town as it begins to darken. Eventually it would be just lone sparks traveling nervously along, wavering with every second.

     Sage clears her throat; but for once the reproof isn’t for me.

     Cailen is suddenly there, rustling around behind her - cleaning, I think. I’m not certain I masked my startlement well, but his brother doesn’t say anything so I’ve at least recovered well.

     He’s very professional, the slant of his spine says; but when I look again, he’s behind Sage making such faces that I have to try to focus on keeping the bland expression intact. When Sage tracks my gaze a moment later, he is back to innocently wiping down a palette for later use. As soon as she looks away, he starts again. He makes the most absurd expressions, cheeks puffed out, eyes crossed or winking, nose wrinkled, tongue lolling, his timing is perfect. I cannot help but laugh.

     I turn this into a cough. Sage raises a warning eyebrow. Smiling as I’m supposed to, the strange ‘enigmatic’ expression, I try my hardest not to give him away.

     But he persists! The imitations are the worst. Standing behind Sage, the impression would start me laughing or choking, so I steel my spine, try to think of sad things. Small animals left out in the cold. Starving children in Nexus. My sister’s funeral. But even this last is to no avail, the old pain startled from me by sheer good-natured effort. I resort to biting my cheek until the wretched taste of blood makes me nauseous and helps ground me towards keeping my face straight.

     Finally, the light changes too much to continue to work on that section. The elder son nods. “My lady, we must cease for the moment. If it would please you to rest?”

     I sit down with my legs burning from exhaustion, my back stiff and tired, while Cailen comes to help his brother clean the brushes.

     I steal a grape out of the bowl on a table nearby; Sage doesn’t notice until it’s already in my mouth. She looks livid, but there’s nothing she can do besides tell my mother later.

     The elder son - Elgar? I have only heard his name the once - bows, wiping his hands on a cloth to clean them. “My lady Aurora; my lady Sage; if it would please you to return tomorrow instead, we might begin again when the light is fresh. Would this be acceptable?”

      Sage sniffs hard; a bad idea, I’m certain, with the chemicals they are using to clean their tools with. “Is it so difficult for you to continue now?”

      “My lady Sage, I would never want to produce any work that is less than the standard my father would set and because of this would like to be certain that perfection is ensured. Without the light, I would hesitate to lay color and shadow without causing undue textural buildup. My father will have finished the sketches for the rest of the composition by morning, and will be able to attend in the morning.”

     She stands; I see a stain on her sleeve from the cherries she’s been eating while I stand here. “We shall return in the morning then. First light again?”

     “At your earliest convenience, my lady.” Cailen’s brother bows lower than is strictly speaking her rank demands, but I see her preen in the attention. Perhaps I’m not the only one sick of being at home all the time after all.

      “Come along, Lady Aurora. We have lessons to continue. Perhaps even time to try to save your flametongue, if we hurry.”

      It’s Cailen’s brother again who moves to help me step down from the gallery platform. Now that he’s done painting, he won’t even meet my eyes. It’s as if I’ve become more irrelevant than usual; not even worth seeing. For once, I don’t mind.

      I catch Cailen’s eye and set my foot wrong. In the ensuing near-tumble I both drop my fan and kick it under the nearest table. The sigh of relief as the moment resolves is real; in the immediate concern over my dress and well-being (I always can count on Sage for her caring nature) I know no one has seen the lapse as anything other than accidental. But maybe Cailen will take the hint.

      It’s a silly enough gesture, I know; I read it once in a novel one of the maids smuggled in for me, but it had the best potential of all the options I thought about.

      He looks worried, until I am standing again without pain.

      “I beg your pardon; I misjudged your step,” I say to his brother, who half-caught me.

      “Not at all, my lady, so long as you are well, we are grateful for your safety.” Elgar has panic written all across his face.

      Sage is not nearly so worried. “You must be more cautious, lady Aurora, especially when you are already aware of this space. Imagine if you had made this misstep on the stairs at home! I will speak to Master Renshu to work with your balance, and perhaps Mistress Bai. These mistakes must not be made if you are to dance with your father’s guests. Can you imagine the embarrassment?”

      I duck my head and bite my lip to stop smiling when I see Cailen strike the pose Sage has taken. “Of course. I will be more cautious when we come again. Thank you for your assistance, Master Morag; I apologize for causing you distress.”

      “It is no matter, my lady. I am very pleased you are well.”

      Sage takes my arm firmly, and I am hurried away.

      Father has invited guests to dinner, who arrive at nearly the same time as we do. As we ascend the main stairs, I hear the clatter of horses. Lucky them.

      I am not required to make an appearance, so Sage has food brought to me and tests my calligraphy. At least she can’t tell Mother about the grape, or my ‘fall’.

      Every unexpected sound makes me jump; a burst of laughter, or what I presume is someone’s drunken attempt at song. Sage passes by my shoulder, watching for when my hands shake with startlement. Every so often the ink speckles minutely and I pretend the driplets are constellations over Nexus or Lookshy. I wonder if Cailen knows more constellations, or at least different ones. I wonder if he’s been in either city before.

      A burst of raucous laughter from below makes me jump, and I ruin a sheet entirely, spilling ink on it and myself all at once.

      “My lady Aurora, it is highly unrefined the way you continue to respond to these predictable events as if you were a frightened scullery maid rather than a young lady. And what a waste you’ve made of this! Look at the mess. And all over yourself as well! I don’t know how I will explain to your Mother that we will have to have another set of clothing made for you. It really is too bad of you not to have been more temperate in your reaction. Do you think your Mother behaves so?”

      The ink is only briefly sticky on my fingers. “Of course not. I am sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

      “Just think of the time wasted in remedying this sort of clumsiness. There is already so much to be done this time of year. Of all times for you to do so!”

      I feel my face burn. “I would like to make up for my error, if I might-?”

      “It is beneath you. Instead you may set to perfecting your self-control so these moments don’t become practiced habit. Between this and the incidents this morning, you clearly have not absorbed the lessons taught to you. We will begin with those in the morning. I will call in Korcha to help you change your clothes, and will handle this myself. Go, before it stains through to the under layers as well.”

      “Yes, of course.” And Korcha is gracious, even helping scrub the ink from my hands before I am swathed in different silks. She bundles the ruined layers so the ink stains are isolated; I know the fabric will be cleaned or teased apart fiber by fiber to be reused, but I really ought not be quite so clumsy. The red brocade must have been a great deal of work even before it comes to me. All destroyed in and unfocused moment.

      Korcha excuses herself. I spend a moment longer, trying to still my nerves. There’s a knock at the door, but in the interest of not repeating the incident, I wait until I’m certain I’ve steadied myself.

      Sage says nothing to me when I return, but the stirring outside in the hall has resulted in my fan reappearing on the table. I set down as close to perfectly the same lines again before it’s time for bed.

      After the usual bedtime flurry when the fires are banked and the candles smothered, I creep from my bed and take it into my hands to think in the cool night air spilling moonlight through the window.

      Clearly deliveries aren’t the answer. He’s either not capable of talking his way past the front door or unable to pass for one of the underservants. I fan myself slowly, and watch the sentries make their rounds. The garden rises fragrances of petrichor and jasmine, and the faintest smell of our rare bamboo blossoms. At length I return to bed to puzzle out an answer in sleep that doesn’t present itself in waking but there’s sweetness to the thought that he found the fan. He saw and cared to make the effort. It is a pleasant warmth that accompanies my rest.

 

 

 

**_Do you really want?_ **

**_Do you really want me?_ **

**_Do you really want me dead or alive to live a lie?_ **

 

**_Ah, how hard a thing it is to say what that wood was, so savage and harsh and strong that the thought of it remains my fear!_ **

**_It is so bitter that death is little more so! But to treat of the good that I found there, I will tell of the other things I saw._ **

 

 

 

      He looks up at a trumpet blast from the other end of the main street. A man has climbed upon the stage constructed so he can look over the crowds. Beside him she yawns.

      “If you’d like to go and hear the rules and such, now would be the time.”

      “Won’t you need to know them as well?” he asks.

      This time it is an honest grin, though chilling. “It is much easier to beg forgiveness rather than permission if I have the information from Hearts instead; if I should happen to err, it will be blamed on her. Besides, we’re travelling together; so it doesn’t matter practically speaking.”

      “Gooood afternoooon citizensss!!” The voice booms out over the assembled players who jockey for position or vantage points more to their comfort.

      “Go on then,” she says, nudging his knee with her own, exposed and deliberate. “Take your place or tell your tale. We don’t seem to have a good deal of time remaining and I would have the bulk of it before we depart. How long did the escapades of the fans last?”

      “It was months before we worked it out. You studied your sentries patterns so well that you noticed the weaknesses that they were probably not aware of themselves; I was resourceful.”

      She laughs again, the same harshness in the timbre as before; ancient pain captured within the breath. “Very well. Tell me of your cleverness.”

 

 

 

**_Thou art my master, and my author thou,_ **

**_Thou art alone the one from whom I took_ **

**_The beautiful style that has done honour to me._ **

 

**_Oh, thinking about all our younger years,_ **

**_There was only you and me,_ **

**_We were young and wild and free._ **

 

 

 

      Another day goes by where I am forced to endure her departure.

      That wretched Lady Beige or whatever her name is never lets me close enough to speak with her. Between her overwatching and Dad sending me on errands, I rarely even get to see her. The little time I am there to see her is filled with silence, as I cannot possibly start a conversation with her during the portrait. The few times I have ever heard her speak were goodbyes, as she needed to return to her manor.

      Oh, how soft her voice was! I can scarcely imagine anything sweeter than the way she speaks. Truly this is inspiration that will fuel great works, but I require more. I yearn for a true conversation. I need to know more of her if I am ever to truly capture the beauty she inspires in me. I know I have her favor in this endeavor, for when I catch her attention during the painting sessions I am able to force her true smile forth with my usual guile.

      The smiles she gives, concealed as she tries to keep them from the others, send joy and elation through the core of me. Knowing that I have caused such emotion in one so noble, truly she must be of sound mind to understand the deep humor I emulate. Even now, my body trembles with nervous joy when thinking about those smiles. The bottles clatter as I trudge around the empty studio, stocking the paint on our shelves and cleaning up after another successful day.

      “Cailen.” My brother’s rough voice snaps me back to reality, as I suddenly notice him hovering right beside me. He points over to the studio floor by the chair offered for her to rest between sessions. “I thought I told you to return that daft girl’s fan?” There, neatly tucked under it by the leg, is a delicate paper fan.

      I had returned the fan, though. Much to my own dismay. The beautiful Aurora had left it by mistake weeks ago, and I seized it like the golden opportunity it was. I had imagined striding up to the manor, heroic in my own way, knocking on the door to find her opening it. This would allow me to show her my gallant and good nature, as well as start up a conversation for once. Alas, it was a servant who answered! He insisted I hand the fan over so he might return it to Lady Aurora. It was all very disheartening, though I am not one to quit.

      Looking over this fan, however, I am faced with several questions. The last one had a pattern of lotus and azalea blossoms against black leaves. Quite the elegant piece, really. Very fitting that she would be the one to own it.

      This one, on the other hand is... odd. The structure is designed elegantly, same dark wood frame and silk fabric, but the decoration is atrocious. As if someone had just made vague smears all over the fabric with heavy ink. Is it supposed to resemble something? There is a long rectangle, some blotch in the middle, some square, and some.... encircled crescent above it all.

      What if this is a message? Perhaps Aurora had someone make this so that I could see her! I should let her know that whoever did this has little skill. Still thinking, I lay down against the wall farthest from Elgar and his practice on the desk. The circled crescent must be the moon, or someone’s poor approximation of it. The ink has bled into the silk badly and haloed each piece.

      Elgar looks up. “Are you going to give it back to the girl, or not? I can have someone else deliver the fan to her house if you’re sooo busy.”

      Her house! This must be the wall around her house. Of course! “Oh! No, no, I’ve got this. No sense paying good money when you have free labor, right?” I gather myself up and quickly grab my bag, running out the door. “I’ll be back later. Thanks, Elgar!”

      “Just return the damn thing!” His painting must be going well for him not to get after me more. Normally I would be getting more work stacked on top of me, but he always forgets to tell me when he is in a good mood. I have more important thoughts, for the time though. My hands trace over the fan again and again. Knowing that I’m holding something that belongs to Aurora somehow lifts my soul. I must meet her soon, waiting is weighing on my soul. Deciphering this message is top priority.

      Walking down the road with purpose, weaving through the people here and there by instinct, I open the fan again. If these longer lines are the mansion walls, the box near the center would be the house itself. What about this smaller square, thought? And what is the blotch, or whatever was intended to be represented by these brush strokes? Maybe it’s a side door? What else would it be?

      When I finally reach the House, and start pacing around the walls I do my best to look busy, looking back and forth between my surroundings and the fan. I am trying to make a connection to these symbols, but I can feel frustration spreading from my hands to my face. There has to be a better way. I can’t think of it.

      I turn and bang my head on the wall a few times hoping to divine the meaning of all this and be done with all of the waiting. Pain echoing through my head I grit my teeth. “Why. Can’t. I. Get. This.”

       _Ow._

      “Can you stop that?” I look up in dizzy surprise to see a guard atop the wall staring down at me. He is young for a guard, handsome nonetheless. He is also clearly concerned.

      I try to compose myself, straighten my clothes before starting in on him. “I’m so sorry. I was just having a moment, you see. I had no intent on vandalizing your walls with my blood. I’m just sort of stuck.”

      The guard looks stern, but still worried. “I’m not worried about your blood. I’m worried about why you’re hitting your head against my employers wall.”

      Truth comes more easily than a lie with my head still ringing. “I’m lost, you see! Lost in thoughts that lead me nowhere. I am an artist without his inspiration, and without that, what good is an artist?”

      “Calm down there, boy!” He leans back looking down the long stretches of the wall. “I don’t want to have to run you off without due cause.”

       _Aha._  The man is sympathetic to my plight. Perhaps Fate did deliver an answer. “My good guard! Well, not my guard, but he who guards that which is precious, may I have your name?”

      Suspicion immediately clouds his expression, even under his helm. “My name? I don’t give that out to people over the wall. Why would you even want it?”

      “Did I not mention I was an artist? You see, I am in need in of inspiration. In my time of need, you should appear, gallant and imposing, standing on that wall. Your uniform is dashing, with that perfect contrast of black and gold, your features screaming to be immortalized. Please sir, give me your name, and let me offer you my service!”

      “What are you going on about, boy? Did you hit your head too hard?” He holds his spear tighter now, but his eyes are intent.

      “My dear friend, you are in the prime of life. Anyone can see that. You are young, appealing, and holding a steady job. Young women must fall for you on a daily basis.”

      The guard lets out a genuine laugh, takes a look about himself and removes his helmet. “Not as much as you’d think, but I do well for myself certainly.”

      I am pressed close to the wall now, gushing enthusiasm towards him. “I could raise your status, and your appeal, by twofold, in making you a portrait. Everyone knows that owning a portrait of oneself in one’s prime is a sign of nobility and solid stature! The job you occupy is a harrowing one, my friend! Filled with peril, and guaranteed for strife. Your features will fade, turn dull, accumulate scars. Do not pass this opportunity by! Let me immortalize the man you are now!”

      He is leaning over the wall now, trying to be just a few inches closer to keep the conversation as quiet as possible. “Are you so gifted as to accomplish such a portrait?”

      Now I know I have his interest - thank Sol for Elgar drilling me on my pitch. “Yes. I am young, but highly talented, and doing my best to constantly improve. Will you help me improve? Will you let me be your painter?”

      He leans back, putting his weight on his spear. “I don’t earn much. I can’t pay you.”

      “No need! I do not require your payment, merely inspiration. By immortalizing you, others will see the talents I contain and wish to be immortalized as well. I would just ask one favor of you.”

      Suspicion returns but is heavily muddled by the eager interest. “What would that be?”

       “Let me on the wall so that I might capture the stunning background scenery. I want to make your portrait something special, so a plain background won’t do. I just need to come onto the property to really solidify the scenery.”

      “I can’t just let you up here. I could get fired for that.”

      “Come now, surely there must be a time when no one would notice? It is imperative that I capture your scenery. Please sir.”

      He is silent for a long moment, clearly considering a great deal. I can feel myself further and further on the edge. My limbs practically scream to just rush up the wall and shake the man already for delaying my destiny for so long.

      “Fine, but come as it gets dark. There are fewer guards on the later shifts, and we might have a few private minutes then.”

      “Thank you, sir! Thank you! You have no idea how impactful your decision is on my inspiration. I won’t let you down. Where should I meet you?”

      “Meet me at the westernmost wall when as the sun’s setting. We’ll go from there."

      “You will not regret this decision, my friend, I will meet you later tonight.”

      I run home as fast as if I had the limbs of one of the grassland-lizards, to gather all of my sketching supplies. I am filled with renewed spirit, enhanced sense as everything around me is joyous. I will make his portrait; I would not lie to such an honest man. I will gain entrance to the mansion and be able to secure a more private means of entering on my own. Once I have put together all the clues and figure out a clear path, I will finally speak with Aurora.

      I can hardly wait - just before sunset I return. The guard told me to meet him along the western wall, but - why is life so hard on the gifted? In my excitement I forgot to ask which that was. I have never been gifted in navigation, and regret that I never thought such things would become relevant. How cruel fate is to flaunt this in front of me when I am so close to my goal!

      But I will not let this adversity break me. It cannot be the wall of the front gate; I have hidden on the side bordering the forested slope, dodging between trees to prevent any other guards from spotting me. But if this were the right place, he would have shown by now. That leaves the side of the wall facing the meadow steppes, or the cliff edge. It must be the cliff side wall.

      I keep myself low to the ground, stepping lightly between the trees until they start to disperse and the ravine below becomes fully exposed. I can barely recognize the Karun river at the bottom when looking over the cliffside. Moonlight dances and shimmers across the surface, though, appearing as bright silver snakes slithering in place among dark terrain. I would rather not plummet that far down to meet them, so, hugging the wall as much as possible, I travel along.

      The stones making the foundation of the wall are neatly placed together, built taller than me standing on my toes. Different sizes and shapes all perfectly placed as if they were made to be assembled in just that way. They feel cool and gritty to the touch, with small amounts of hardened mortar sticking out of the crevices where they are sealed together. Above the foundation, the wall is pristine white plaster rising far above my head. If I had three more of myself, we could stand on one another’s shoulders so one of us could reach the top.

       As it’s unlikely I’ll be able to duplicate any time soon, I trace my way along the wall, never letting my hand leave its surface. In the unlikely event that I should find myself too close to the cliff I want something to grab so I may prevent a gruesome death smashed upon river rocks. Or at least delay it. I can’t imagine such an event to be one you would want to rush towards, though I suppose it would make quite the painting. It could be a vertical piece, showing Aurora in the highest part of the House, nearest to the stars with gentle and cool colors surrounding her. Transitioning down to the walls and earth that separate us, the color scheme would remain the same, but with harder lines and rougher edges as I am seen plummeting down into the valley just before impact with the water and rocks. I would call it “An Era Lost”, how fate stole the world’s greatest painter. Or maybe “Artistry without Inspiration!” How the artist falls in pursuit of his muse. Wait, I’ve got it, I really am brilliant; I should call it-

      “Boy! Are you listening? Get over here!”

      A hand grasps my arm hard and I am nearly sent spiraling down out of pure shock. I am pulled into the wall, as it appears I may have drifted slightly. The guard I met earlier turns back into the crack beneath the foundation, which turns from flat, placed stone to a narrow slip in the rock, rough hewn and ill-kept. The ground inside is scarred with the marks of years of work. The tunnel inside sharply curves one way and then the other so that any light from the outside is lost after the first few turns. The guard leads on, while I can barely see anything surrounding us. The ground is rough, and I catch on small cracks here and there, but always maintain my balance. Even though I can’t see his face, I swear I hear him laugh around the third or fourth stumble. I’d like to see him try and carry all these supplies in a foreign, slick, enclosed space and try to keep his balance. Bet he couldn’t....

      We keep going. After more turns, three or four maybe, I see a light, pale yellow like salted butter. We emerge from the narrow passage into a small chamber where a candle rests on the ground; he picks it up. Clearly he left it behind earlier when he came to find me. Candlelight flickers across the room; one side of the little room has a low tunnel. On the opposite wall, a similar sized passage as what we just exited, far more reasonable than the low one. I couldn’t fit through that without crawling on my stomach like some kinda lizard, let alone the soldier twice my size.

      “Quit squinting and come on.” He starts down the taller passage on the other side of the room, and I follow the faint outline of his presence dimly cast. The path winds back and forth for what feels forever. We come across four intersections along the way where two paths split off in front of us, or at least I think so. I see an extra tunnel that seems to go back the way we are coming from, but it is hard to see anything too far down them.

      “It’s easy to get lost in here, boy. Best keep up.”

      “You wouldn’t honestly leave me down here. You’d never get your portrait then!”

      “If any other guards find out you’re here, I’d be in trouble. More trouble than your life is worth. So no one’s coming to help you if you wander off.

      That’s troubling... I start running through the turns and intersections in my head just in case as we come around another corner, one right then we come out of the tunnel on the left, and left, and another left. The scars on the walls are deceptive. They seem perpetually different and the same. The guard keeps on forward and finally after hours or minutes or years we run into a flat stone wall with a makeshift ladder resting on it. He holds the candle out in front of me.

      “I’m going to check and see if anyone else is around. When I give the signal, you’re going to blow out that candle and make your way up quietly. Otherwise this night will end very badly for you.

      “Don’t you mean for ‘us’?” I whisper as he starts up the old brittle ladder.

      He stops mid climb and looks down on me. His eyes shine in the candlelight and I think I see a smile across his face. “No. See if anyone catches you up there, I’ll just treat you like any other trespasser and start the conversation with my spear.”

      That’s a morbid thought.

      I take a moment to strangle the idea of being chased around by a bunch of armed guards in the middle of the night. Aside from the piercing headache I would undoubtedly catch in trying to avoid their wrath, it would utterly ruin the moment if Aurora saw me in such an unpleasant light. Something which sounds like smooth wood over smooth wood accompanies a faint grunt above me. A pebble promptly falls down, hitting me square between the eyes. That stings. I wonder how stable these tunnels actually are if small parts of the ceiling are coming loose. Best keep that in mind.

      "Hey!" I look up to see him waving frantically at me. Not the most subtle signal, but who am I to judge?

      I pinch out the candle to leave minimal smoke trails and find myself in immediate and complete darkness. My eyes haven't had time to adjust. I am surprisingly glad that no one is here to watch me stumble around in the dark. I crack my knee against the wall before I find the first rung and the pain makes me acutely aware of just how much I envy wolves their night vision. I should work on that some day.

      I have never been so pleased to feel old, splintering wood beneath my hands. I climb up ten rungs before I feel a hand on the back of my shirt, hauling me up through a hole in the wall.

      As soon as I'm out, I start to see moonlight filtering in through paper-coated windows. It's a hall, planed wooden floors stretching away from me in both directions like a heavy dark ink. I'm not sure if it's the darkest wood to have ever been grown, or just painted black by lacquer and shadow. The walls are crisply divided into wooden panels along the bottom and heavy white paper separated by slender, straight wooden crosspieces. There are stone walls beside where we came out, smooth and covered every two feet in costly, woven tapestries that I can't quite see the patterns on. Classy. This is to be expected of such a noble family.

      "Don't touch anything. We need to move quickly." I take a step and the floorboards groan like a falling tree, as loudly as a thunderstorm. I grimace and try to lift my foot away. They creak again as the pressure releases and I can feel my whole body tighten wishing desperately to take back the noise. I open one eye and look around quickly, but the guard only sighs and pulls on my shoulder.

      "Can't do anything about that right now. We just have to get out of here quickly. Hopefully they'll think it was just me doing my rounds."

      He rushes us down the hall, and out into a yard. He presses me against the wall and closes the door behind us. I look around and see that we've come out of the Northeast wall into the courtyard of the mansion. The house looms dark up ahead, triple levels cutting perfect crescents of faintly moon-touched tiles intersected by dark lines of black, shadowed walls. The guard pulls me across the yard back behind the house, where the narrow alley between the porch of the first floor of the house and the wall don't quite meet in case of fire. We creep along the edge, which turns from steps and railings to a wall of an enclosed area. I hear footsteps on the wood, still swinging lazily with the pace of a casual stroll. The guard swears and picks me up under his arm. I’d be offended at how easy it was for him to lift me if it weren’t benefiting us right now. He hurries to the back alley corner and around to the northwest. We duck out of view just in time for the lantern the sentry is carrying to send a clear beam behind us. This wall is dark and we slip into a door in the wall. The guard closes the door. There are more stairs, lit by pale light through arrow slits. Once we reach the top we're on the wall right where I need to see. I wiggle out of his arms and straighten my clothes.

      “Quick thinking back there! Little rough, but nonetheless effective.”

      “Whatever you say. Let’s just get a move on before anyone spots us.” He says looking around.

      “Keep your armor on and stop looking so nervous! It’ll ruin the moment.”

      I pull the paper from my waist and the charcoal from my pocket and start making the sketch. A bunch of quick hasty strokes to mark out the bare outlines of the view from the wall. As I stretch, I look over the wall into the enclosure, which turns out to be a gracefully planned pleasure garden with a pond, large weeping willow tree, and a boulder big enough to house a small family if it were hollowed out. There's a dense thicket of bamboo in the same corner as the gardener's shed and I can see from up here the thin strip of stones that border it and the door the bamboo hides.

      The guard is growing more nervous as I outline the portrait. The sketch is rough and doesn't make sense to an outside eye but shows me the placement of sky and stone and man. If I take any longer, the guard might bail on me. As I finish and wrap up my paper I look over. On the second floor overlooking the garden I see someone carrying a candle to the window frame.

      As the light hits her face I recognize Aurora, as if she alone were haloed by the soft gold and orange flame in a world of dark blue and silver white. She smiles when she sets it down on the window sill, and looks out into the night. I can tell that she cannot see beyond the light, but for a moment the world was still as our eyes crossed paths. I feel so very sure that our fates are meant to be interwoven. Time never truly stops, no matter how pleasant the view; our moment passes, as I see her turn and vanish. Only a tiny star is left behind, the candle burning steadily as if beckoning me inside.

      “Let’s be on our way!” The guard bundles me off but I know that it was fate that allowed me to see her tonight. Certainly that glorious glow surrounding her was more than just candle light. She is a beauty seldom seen in this world and I cannot wait to capture every aspect of her in my next piece of work. Just thinking about it makes me...

      “Watch it!” the guard grabs hold of my chest as I nearly slip down the stairs.

      I have got to get a better handle on those daydreams or I could end up in some serious trouble.

      The guard peeks and gestures that someone is there. He sees someone and we have to wait in the darkness until they have gone. As we creep by the north wall, I hear a woman's voice talking to someone else inside.

      "We've another emissary coming tomorrow. Make sure you have the peacock refeathered before it's served, and also a separate dish for my lady Aurora. Her mother says that she will be taking her dinner in her room until she's less enthusiastic about asking difficult questions of important people. The last ambassador nearly choked from embarrassment during the third course."

      The guard snorts and mutters, "Butler says she got the answer she wanted, though."

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Internal matters. Nothing concerning our arrangement. Come on.”

      He opens the door on the far side and shoos me inside before he scans the outside for prying eyes again.

      Then he walks over and pushes a tiny part of the carving twenty degrees to the right and out on the seventh panel from the left corner of the hallway. The panel four over slides open and he pushes it aside. He gestures me into the wall and then down the ladder then pulls the strap on the back of the door to close it. A second later I hear flint strike, and a spray of sparks lights the candle again. He carefully climbs down the ladder with it.

      "We have to get you outside quickly, I have to get back to my post soon or they'll know something is going on. This picture of yours better be worth it."

      "I swear it will be! I would never let down such an illustrious patron as yourself, who has been so kind as to go out of his way in the name of Art. Lead the way, good sir!"

      He grumbles but I see a smile when he turns away.

      I'm careful to pay attention to the turns on the way out, running the order against what I remember from our journey in. It seems simple enough, but I'll have to spend time some day figuring out where the other tunnels go. Carefully. Don't need any more pebbles, or larger, knocking me on the head again.

      He doesn't go with me all the way; as soon as there are no more side passages he points me in the direction out, and says, "Remember, if they catch you, I didn't know anything and I don't know who you are. "

      "Of course! I would never betray my employer!"

      "Let me know when you've finished. We'll figure the rest out from there."

      "It will only take me a short time, but it will be a piece of artistry unlike any other! I promise you sir, this will elevate your status among any who should see it. "

      "Good luck, kid," he says, and chuckles as he turns to go back.

      I wander through the darkness feeling along the walls and wonder if I'll find the exits before I fall off the ledge. As luck has it, the moon is still shining bright and illuminated the exit, guiding my safe passage. When I edge out onto the stone, I start to hear the river roaring distantly far below. I slide up the slope, determined to go back. I've got a way in, now it's just a matter of acting on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's Divine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics.
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D In this section, the quote "Thou art my master" Is actually taken from the translation from Project Gutenberg's edition, because I like the use of *thou* instead of the gendered translation in Durling's, even though I think Durling is more accurate.
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from:  
> *Hurricane*  
> [Songwriters: Jared Leto, Hurricane lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group]  
> *Never Forget You*  
> [Songwriters: Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike / Zara Maria Larsson / Arron Carl Davey]  
> *Heaven*  
> [Songwriters: Bryan Adams / James Douglas Vallance, Heaven lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group]
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.


	3. Temer si dee di sole quelle cose c'hanno potenza di fare altrui male; de l'altre no, che non paurose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting and an exploration; Cailen finally talks to Aurora! and plans a picnic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

_Where there's a will, there's a way, kind of beautiful_

_And every night has its day, so magical_

_And if there's love in this life, there's no obstacle_

_That can't be defeated_

 

 

_The day was departing, and the darkened air was releasing all living creatures on the earth from their toils; and I alone_

_prepared myself to undergo the war both of the journey and of pity, which memory, unerring, will depict._

 

 

     The Emissary from Asherta has eaten an entire tray of abalone by himself. He has also eaten three pigeons and, by the time I stand to excuse myself, drained three pitchers of Water of History. Because of this, he is, despite the food, very drunk.

     I bow carefully; Mother is watching very closely over her cups. “My Lord Father, I would take my leave.”

     He waves a hand, casually dismissing me without a word. “Your Excellency, we would like to offer you the artistry of a very recent playwright. Would you join us? There will be more to drink there.”

     They transition to the grand receiving room, and I escape upstairs. Sage stays below, continuing her slow erosion of the Emissary’s steward and his reticence. She won’t be upstairs for hours.

     I lock the door to the hall, take one of my histories of Cherak, and curl up beside my fire. The chapter I ceased reading before has a beautiful section discussing the kingdoms across the sea eloquently. But before I can fall too far into the descriptions, the clock chimes the twenty-second hour of the day. I lay history aside and go to light the candle in the window. I don’t know if it will do any good; it hasn’t as of yet. Nonetheless, I set it in the window, look out at the darkness. I can’t see Luna from here, until I open the frame and lean out.

     She’s a little higher in the sky tonight as she progresses in her cycle; she much have such strange thoughts as she crosses the night. She sees all below her, but I can’t imagine how pleasing the company of stars is. It must be lonely, at times.

     Perhaps she has books as well.

     I close the window, turn back to my corner of pillows by the fire and my book, pulling my knees up to my chest under my dressing-robe.

     The chapter transitions between the sea into the forests. But then, there is a thump outside as if a cat has landed on the roof heavily. Nothing shows at the glass, and when I listen all I hear is the night owls outside calling back and forth in the distance and the river below. The sentries haven’t called warning, so it likely is nothing dangerous.

 _Or they haven’t seen whatever made the noise_ , I think, but there haven’t been any particular enemies of my parents who are active lately, and I’m not worried about anything wild on the grounds. Even the last time a Tyrant Lizard came through, we were safe up here. The last cougar never made it past the front bonfires.

     Nothing else happens. I draw the blanket off of a chair to cover my feet in a sudden chill; it’s soft and dense, colored like the petals of a violet with some dark stain of purple and a bright bloom of golden at the bottom.

     Of course, this is when there’s a tap at the window. I barely manage not to leap out of my skin when I see a face outside. I don’t manage to catch my surprise, and I do squeak, but no one seems to be coming to check at the moment. Halfway across the room I recognize him, run to the room to move the candle and unlatch the glass with a smile breaking across my face.

_Finally. I was beginning to wonder if this would work._

     He’s almost shaking with exhaustion, which means he must have climbed in! but I can wait to ask questions about how later. I set my finger to my lips, hoping he’ll be patient, but it is an unnecessary thing when he is panting so hard for breath that I don’t think he could say anything even if he wanted to. Close the curtain, and replace the candle; in case the sentries look, it’s important not to deviate from the pattern without apparent cause. Then I pull him by the wrist out of the view of the window before I realize the fact that he’s in my room.

     My face burns; I drop his hand, dip into a quick bow to give myself time to regain composure. “Cailen — it pleases me to welcome you to my house.”

     His smile is so big and delighted for a moment; it slips a little, as I see him register where he is. It looks like he isn’t sure of what he’s doing anymore than I am.

     After a moment, he says, “I am so pleased to be here.”

     I remember my manners. No more staring. “Would you care for a drink?” I have water on my bedside table at the very least, in a porcelain ewer from Lookshy, even if I don’t have food tonight to share.

     “I would love one, I’m parched from climbing. I mean, not too parched.” He’s quick to contradict himself, either for the sake of politeness or....

     “You climbed?” I was right, though I would have thought the sentries would have seen him at some point on the wall. He must be better at hiding than they are at seeing. I would worry about the security of our house, but I did hear him coming and I’m sure if I screamed or even spoke too loudly someone would come.

     His enthusiasm is beautifully infectious. “Yes! I’ve been climbing a lot. And then I saw your signal in the window, and - oh, I still have the fan.” He digs in his pocket for a moment and pulls out the fan I dropped weeks ago, the one I painted.

     Looking at it again, with such a clumsy drawing as it is, I can’t think why he would have kept it. “You... still have my fan?” What absolute stupidity the question is. Obviously he does.

     “Yeah,” he says, holding it a little uncomfortably, running his fingers over the fabric end.

     I find myself playing with the edge of my sleeve, uncertain of what to say next. I drop the fabric and fold my hands; fidgeting gives away how nervous I am, and I need to hold on to every particle of confidence I can. The room is completely silent for a minute, and in the background the ticking of the clock is very loud, even as it’s muffled by the carpets and tapestries.

     “You have a beautiful room,” he offers.

     “Oh! Thank you. All of mine are comfortable, but I like the colors in here the best.”

     “You have more than one?” He’s surprised, and I realize I may have misspoke. I don’t want him to think I’m putting on airs.

     “Yes, the bedroom, and the sitting room, and... Oh, I forgot to fetch you a drink.” I try to move smoothly and take a full breath every third step. The glaze on the pitcher is slick, makes it feel heavier than usual. I’m not sure I should have mentioned my other rooms. I’m almost certain, now that I think about it, that his father’s entire studio could fit inside my part of the house alone. Please Sol he won’t take it badly. I offer the glass to him. “I’m sorry. Here.”

     He takes it from me and drinks it thirstily. Of course he’s thirsty after climbing and evading our men. I should have had a glass waiting. If he wants to come back, I’ll have to remember that. And food. Maybe cheese and fruit, so it doesn’t weigh him down on the way back home. Where his fingers touched mine feels warm, still, and I have to quickly search for a topic before the heat in my face becomes oppressive.

     “So what do you normally do after I leave?” I ask, after he’s finished the first glass, while reaching to fill it again.

     “Your rooms?” The top of his nose crinkles too when he’s confused.

     “No - sorry, I mean, after you’re done painting. At your... house?” Perhaps the two are combined? my skin crawls. I shouldn’t have asked. He’ll think I’m condescending.

     “Oh. The workshop. It’s less beautiful, then.” He’s sweet; I know it’s flattery, and I want to disagree, but at least it seems I haven’t misspoke.

     I can’t help but smile. He sees everything here so quickly; I can almost read his judgements on the colors in the room.

     “The painting is so lovely, though!” I’m constantly impressed at how his family is able to reproduce the light and the shadows, and the way the fabric folds. The colors are so rich. I almost feel like I could touch my own hand through the canvas.

     “The painting doesn’t appropriately capture its subject. Also, the coloring is shoddy.” He grows so serious when he’s talking about art. So definite. He must have some idea of what he would change if he’s so certain.

     “How would you do it, then?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.

     He makes a subtle motion with his fingers, like moving through water. “First off, I would choose somewhere better than a stuffy studio with a standard backdrop. Something scenic that could actually be a solid comparison.”

     “Where, then?” He does have a point about the workshop; it is very warm in there without being allowed to fan myself constantly.

     “Somewhere with water. A pond, or a riverside, something to show life and growth.”

     I try to imagine myself standing anywhere so far from either my house or the workshop, on ground that is not swept and cultured, raked or weeded. Just free. The closest is my garden, by the pond with koi and turtles, among the water lilies and lotus petals, with the bamboo along the back wall for texture. “What else? Would you change, I mean.” I should be glad that I’m not stuttering.

     “Well...” He shifts his weight on his feet, considering. I wonder what he’s actually seeing, since I’m fairly certain it isn’t my room. “I would paint a different wardrobe. The one in your portrait is too formal. It doesn’t exude the true you. Something more lively, electric!”

     It’s lovely to laugh with his excitement, instead of keeping my face straight. “But you barely know me.”

     He frames the sketch in the air with his hands, his voice gaining surety. “That’s the brilliance of it! Simply looking upon you, there is so much to see! Such depth and color! It promotes such imagination. You long to see more...” His eyes return to seeing the physical world again, meet mine; he catches himself in the thought. He looks smaller than a second ago.

     The room seems to be listening more thoroughly than normal, the clock gears grinding a little as the hand passes four after the hour. Wondering if I’m being too forward, I try anyway.

     “Or you could visit, more often. Again.”

     He perks up, his back straightening. “I can?”

     I nod. “If you wanted. It’s quiet here.” Please come back. Maybe I can welcome him better next time.

     “I definitely want you!” He catches his breath. “Want to!” His eyes grow large when he slips in speaking, and I can see the panic on his face.

     My heart is fluttering my breaths and turning into giggles. I hope he won’t take it amiss. “I’m flattered. I’ll make certain there’s food for you next time. I would imagine climbing is a lot of work. I’m not usually allowed.” I'm never allowed to let my feet leave the earth for more than the length of a step, unless I am dancing or moving through forms.

     He squares his shoulder slightly; I doubt he knows he’s doing it. “I certainly wouldn’t mind, but only if it’s not too much trouble.” He’s back to formality. I suppose I should match this.

     “I doubt if anyone will even notice.” I wonder if I should offer a chair, or just sit on the floor. “Will you tell me about the rest of what happens when I’m not at the workshop? I’m ever so curious.” I'll just sit, informally.

     His eyes are full of strange surprise, several small expressions flighting across his brow, tilt of his head ever so subtly. He drops to his knees, following my lead onto the pillows. “Oh. Sure! I suppose it’s just your standard day. Lots of painting, cleaning, maintaining tools. Father sends me on errands, my brother pretends to be good at his work...”

     “What sorts of errands? Do you mean like fetching canvases and things? What do you paint?” I press my fingers against my lips trapping the next words; I should wait until he answers before I keep questioning him like this.

     His eyes are so beautiful; every color from the deep red bark of my maple, the terracotta of the flowerpots, the variation of sienna burnt and raw. Maybe that’s how everything should look; full of light and hopefulness, open to the world.

     Maybe I’m waxing poetic, and am lovesick on top of it.

     He shrugs, loosely, but catches himself before he relaxes entirely. I suspect if he were home, he wouldn’t still be sitting so stiffly.

     “Depends on what my father needs. Sometimes it’s special paints, or particular papers, different palettes and brushes. Sometimes I drop off the finished works to clients. But I paint a lot of things! I paint people, places, large scenes of certain events. Imaginary or not. Though less so lately.”

     “That sounds incredible! How do you know what to paint, if it’s imaginary? I don’t even know how to draw things right in front of me, much less something from my thoughts.” My fan shows that well enough. But he’s tucked it back away into his pocket, absently.

     “Oh, that’s easy! Inspiration just shows up in my head, often as a picture, and refuses to leave me be until I’ve made it real. As I paint, the picture becomes clearer, and I know I’m done when the inspiration goes.”

     “Will you show me? I never can quite see from where I’m sitting.”

     His brows furrow; everything about the balance of his body moves slightly off centered. “You want to see inside my head?”

     “I meant drawing, or painting. But if you can show me that too...” I tease, but wonder if even magic in the tales could show me his thoughts. 

     He balances again, face clearing. “Oh. Of course. Well, I would be happy to show you some of my work, but I don’t really have any with me...”

     “It doesn’t have to be right now,” I say, imagining trying to carry a canvas up the wall. “I just wondered if you would mind.”

     His smile is back again, bright and wide. “Not at all! I would be more than happy to show you some real art.” The inflection is not lost on me; I wonder how often he critiques his brother’s work, with or without provocation.

     “I would love to see.” Remembering the wall makes me wonder again. ‘So - where did you climb?”

     “Outside, obviously.” A point of pride, I see.

     “Did you go over the garden walls? How did you make it past the sentries?”

     He puffs his chest again, chin lifted. “Oh, it was nothing really. I used the secret passages underground to get past the walls, crawling through the narrow tunnels to avoid running into any unknown enemies, then snuck through to the garden, used your shack near the wall, and climbed the side of the house to your delightful window.”

     Which does explain how he passed the sentries, at least in part. “How did you find the tunnels? I didn’t think anyone else still knew they were there.”

     “I’m resourceful,” he says, overly pleased with himself.

     “Full of surprises, more like!” I say, trying to keep from giggling. It’s undignified.

     “That I am.” If possible, he looks even more pleased. Nearly exultant.

     I can’t resist. “You must have many adventures, in that case!”

     “I wouldn’t necessarily call them adventures, but others would say so.”

     Clearly, infiltrating my home is one escapade of many. It is still before the watch will change and there will be fresh eyes for him to evade. “Tell me one, then. Which is your favorite to remember?”

     “You mean aside from right now, right? Because so far, this is definitely one of my favorites.”

     My cheeks are sore from how happy I am; I can’t remember the last time talking has brought me so much joy.

     “Yes, aside from now. I remember this one, I think.”

     “Well, there was this one time when I went to get supplies for my father. He wanted these really nice ornate brushes that had special saber-tooth lion hair bristles. So I went down to Alec, who’s this sultry type running the special orders downtown.”

     His impressions are so embodied that I imagine Alec leaning over the counter, hawking his wares to an invested populace.

     “I go there, and he is looking distraught. He tells me he hadn’t get the goods in yet for the day and didn’t know where they were. Well, my dad wanted those brushes quickly, and I would be a poor example of a son if I didn’t try my hardest to fetch them. I asked Alec where they were supposed to be coming in from, and he sent me to the southern road leading out of town.”

     The South Gate leads south towards the ocean, then East to trade along the coastline. The plains are grassy and full of Tyrant lizards and lions, and bandits who will steal a caravan as soon as look at it. That is, if the merchants are telling me truth instead of trying to simply frighten me into leaving them be.

     “I must’ve been on that road for hours before I finally ran into someone. As luck would have it, I found the caravan that was supposed to deliver to Alec. Unfortunately life is never simple! The caravan was beset by the saber-teeth! The poor caravan guards were trying their best to keep the beasts at bay, but were unable to make them yield because of the lions’ outlandish strength.”

     I shudder to think of fighting a pack of lions, even the smaller ones that sometimes prefer the grasslands. The last merchant who brought my father gifts from the south had carried a canine from one of the lions, and it was as long as two of my hands end to end. Trying to survive an attack from more than one seems impossible, more so when unarmed. “What did you do?”

     “Well, I was just shocked to see such a display. Shocked, I tell you!”

     The tension lifts a little. He’s more indignant, than shocked; likely true then as well, if he’s this fearless. But even more engaged in the tale, his voice is low enough that we’re still safe.

     “So, I looked at the mess and thought, why would these ferocious beasts want to attack Alec’s lowly caravan? Then, out of nowhere, I thought of it. They must think there’s a lion in the caravan! They can smell the bristles, and are trying to save a friend. So, I rush over to the front and dart underneath.”

     My eyes must be huge, because I can see his appreciation of my expression, but he continues.

     “All around me are guards and beasts, fighting it out, neither getting anywhere, Dust is kicked into the air, foul language shouted. It was a mess!

     I hold my breath, not least because for a moment I worry he’s been heard. But even listening carefully, I hear nothing but distant laughter from downstairs.

     “Anyway, I get to the end and climb out from underneath - only to be seen by one of the beasts! It sees me, and leaps after me, with rage in its eyes!”

     A gasp manages to escape me, even though he’s here in front of me, in one piece. Even if this might be slightly embellished for my benefit.

     “I quickly climbed into the back and ducked down, dodging its grasping claws. The beast’s paws were bigger than my face! As scared as I was, I knew that I had to find those brushes before one of these creatures caught me. I rifled through the crates, and finally found one with my father’s name on it. Lying inside where the brushes, beautiful with jade handles and perfect tips. I grabbed them, stuffed them in my shirt.”

     He takes the smallest second to breathe.

     “Now, I couldn’t go running out there, unless I wanted the darn beasts to chase me all the way home. So instead I took one of the bottles from another nearby crate and dumped it all over me. It was a perfume of sorts, but with the amount I used there was no way they could smell the brushes on me. Once I did, I silently jumped out the other side of the cart from the lion, and ran home as fast as I could. And just as I thought, the beasts didn’t notice at all and left me be as they continued after the caravan. Once home, I delivered the brushes to my father who was most pleased, if infinitely confused as to why I smelled of lavender and lilacs...”

     He trails off, caught in the telling as much as I have been.

     “You never told him why?” I try to imagine being so cavalier to Lady Sage about such an adventure, and just know I wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet. What triumph!

     “Why, of course not! That would have ruined the moment.”

     “Did you paint it?” I want to know what the chaos must have looked like around him, what he saw that was most important to remember. To see what the paw of a lion looks like when it’s not a dead thing on the floor.

     His pride turns to awkwardness. “Not the entire thing per se, but I did paint the lions.”

     “Did you use the brushes with their fur?” The irony would be delicious.

     He shakes his head. “No, those were just for father. When I get older, though, he’ll let me use more of his tools and then I can.”

     “Would you use them now? If you have them, I mean.” I think of my allowance, sitting wasted; would he take the money if I offered it? or would he be offended?

     “No doubt! It would be wonderful to experiment with new tools.” He sounds thrilled by the very idea, but grows more serious even as he drops to lean back onto one elbow finally. “Though currently, that will have to wait. I mean, it’s not like my current ones are bad. They just don’t do as much as I would like.”

     I try the words out carefully, tasting their weight and connotations tentatively. “What if I could help you get some? How much are they?”

     There’s near-guilt as he thinks about it. “I... don’t know about that. I think I would feel bad about you buying me things right now. Especially for how much most of them are.”

     I could bite my tongue. “I’m sorry - I never go out, so I thought maybe you’d get more use out of what I have saved. Besides, you could paint me something. It could be like a commission. I didn’t mean to offend...” I apologize wondering how badly I’ve slipped up.

     “No! No, no offense at all!” He sounds as sorry as I feel. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t want you to spend any money for my sake. I mean, I can already make plenty of pieces for you. And if you really wanted you could just give me something. In return, that is. Like gifts!”

     Carefully, carefully, I relax my fingers and ask, “Is there something you would rather have? Instead?” I wonder what I could possibly give to him that would be practical. Most of what I have is fancifulness and impracticalities. But I have paper, and thoughts, and I just feel that whatever it is that he actually does want, I can help. I can actually help him.

     A heavier step lands on the stairs towards my room, and before he has time to answer we both run for the window. I can see the sentries at the far end of the wall, and he nearly tumbles out the window as he scrambles.

     “Will you come again?” I whisper as loudly as I dare, but he hears me, and smiles.

     “Of course. My lady.” He’s teasing, but there’s something to it that seems... more.

     But then there’s the rush of putting things to where they ought to be, and snatching up the history book to read again in the pillows. I can’t absorb anything on the page; I read the same word over and over, hoping not to hear a shout from the sentries.

     The clock finally strikes the twenty third hour of the night. If anything were to happen, it would have happened by now. Relief soaking through me, I climb into bed.

     Everything is exactly the same.

     Everything is different.

 

 

 

_Where are you now?_

_Was it all in my fantasy?_

_Where are you now?_

_Were you only imaginary?_

_Where are you now?_

 

 

_... like one who unwills what he just now willed and with new thoughts changes his intent, so that he draws back entirely from beginning..._

 

 

 

     Her laughter shivers down to the base of his spine. "All the way up the wall. How often did you visit the trembling maiden in her tower? Or shall I assume maidenhood was quickly lost, and all sense of propriety along with it?” Laughing as waspish insult daunts him, she sweeps away any possible response before he even thinks of one.

     “Of course you did no such thing. Why would you? I think your actions would have been for vengeance if you had; but here we are with penance, seeking absolution of a sort. Isn’t that right?”

     The muscles along his jaw tense, despite his efforts. “It’s not penance I’m here for.”

     “I am well aware of what you are here for.” She glances aside, watching a young woman pass by, dressed formally in the style of the West with her fan in hand, teal hair twisted up out of her face, bright green eyes promising determination in her dealings. Sonnet’s eyes are calculating, glancing up and down the woman’s slight form. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

 

 

 

_Where are you now?_

_Under the bright_

_But faded lights_

_You set my heart on fire_

_Where are you now?_

 

 

_... I will tell you why I came and what I heard in the first moment when I grieved for you._

 

 

 

     What was I thinking. The sky is perfectly clear today, but you wouldn’t know it from how dense the trees are in the forest. Angled bars of light caught on dustmotes flash through the leaves off and on again whenever the wind gets too pushy about the land being still.

     What perfect imagery to reflect my mind!

     Incredibly bright, so easy to see, nearly to touch even, but entirely covered up by such heavy foliage which blocks all common sense the light was trying so hard to rain down into the forest bed.

     I’ve had enough time to think of this while I’m out here, wandering from tree clump to next. I promised her an adventure. Now I just have to figure out what to do.

     “‘I go out to the forest all the time’, I said!” I tell the leaves as I smack them off a bush I’m passing.

     “‘The river is one of my favorite places to go. I know many great spots!’, I said!” I can’t tell if I’m purposefully dragging my feet through the dirt to kick it up out of anger, or if I’m just physically weighed down by the absolute ignorance in talking my way into this situation. I don’t know the first thing about outings in the forest.

     I mean, sure. I’ve been here before. I didn’t lie to her about that. It’s just that I only ever came here to practice some of my scenic pieces. Never for anything ‘adventurous’.

     Why do I keep letting my mouth run around her! It always gets me into trouble when I talk for too long. I have got to get a hold on that in the future...

     It’s too maddening. I find a tree to bang my head on, to clear it. My groan muffles poorly into the bark, but if it’s too loud I’ll attract some awful animal that would want to put me out of my anguish. I haven’t felt this frustrated since that time Elgar used up all the seashell pigments for my coastline piece. It took four weeks before more came back into town.

     This time, I’m my own impediment.

     I feel the bark imprint on my forehead. _Get it together, Cailen_. I just have to think this through. Find a beautiful place and paint the scene, like always. Aurora would like that. Right?

     No. No, that would be dull. She’ll just be sitting there bored, while I have all the fun. What do people even do in forests? We could just go on a stroll, but Aurora seems to have enough problems running as is, let alone with roots and rocks jutting out here and there.

     Elgar mentioned that he eats out here sometimes with the people he tries to charm.

     I could do that. Make a picnic out of the whole thing. That’s adventurous!

     I start pacing.

     What do you need for a picnic? Food is essential, and something to lay on the ground. I’m not sure why the covering though. I mean, people lay on the ground all the time. Why is it when you want something to be special, there has to suddenly be all this extra work?

     Adventures should be more direct and simple. Like sketching out still lifes.

     Why can’t life be more like art?

_Wait, why are my feet wet?_

     I’ve wandered without thinking, straight down a creekside. I can’t believe the water is almost up to my knees before I noticed.

     This daydreaming thing is really going to get me into trouble, some day. Maybe I should tone down my inner genius, so I’m less easily distracted.

     Looking around now, this place isn’t so bad. Fate herself must have lead me to this site.

     The creek is calm, with a very subtle flow under the surface. Were it not for the occasional rock jutting through the surface, the water could be most easily mistaken for smooth, ever flowing glass. Rushes bow low to each other on either bank, and the green moss covers the rocks all the way down to kiss the waterweeds here and there. The little swamp blossoms are coming up out of the water, here and there. I’m sure I see fish moving around near the far bank, gathering together like they’re gossiping about me.

     The trees here are no larger than the others I passed on my way here, but the roots are far more pleasant. Where they wind and weave above the surface, they look like serpents instead of grasping monsters from the deep. Where the bank cuts down sharply, the roots are exposed as they reach greedily for the creek.

     I wander up the bank a ways to see if I can find a place less hazardous for Aurora. Nothing would ruin our time out more than having her get hurt absent-mindedly tripping over one of these roots. Not to mention, if she were to come home injured, her caretaker might take notice enough to find out about our excursions. What was her name? Lady Parsley? No. Madame Saffron, perhaps? Ugh. Her name is meaningless. The only thing that matters is that she not find out about Aurora and I meeting nightly.

     A demon like her could never understand how deep a connection we share. If anything, she would probably want to crush us out of pure spite for how joyous we are together.

     Or at least, that’s the impression I understand from Aurora. Though she never talks much about her home life, whenever she mentions that wretched woman it is always followed by studies this, or practice that. Just dreadful.

     I will not have my muse ripped from me because of a scraped knee.

     It takes work, and some thorough self-motivation, but just a little way upstream I find a perfect clearing along the band of the creek. There are a few large rocks sticking out from the earth, barely encroaching onto the creek face. They are remarkably flat, worn down by the water during the rainy seasons no doubt. Due to the boulders’ massive size, there is a nice pocket where you can actually see the sky without the trees blocking the view. As long as I’m careful leading Aurora here, this ought to be perfect!

     Finding my way back from here is only made difficult in trying to find the smoothest path and remember it for later. There has to be an end to the uneven footing where the moss or leaves smooth the way, that isn’t too steep.

     There’s a dry bed, smoothed a bit with sand from water coming downhill during the heavy rains. I end up following it most of the way back home. It’s almost as if Fate has led me here for this purpose. Even Aurora probably won’t hurt herself walking down this path.

     But there’s more to do. I have to find a covering for the ground. A blanket, maybe. I can carry that in a bundle down by the water. And food.

     Food first, before the merchants begin to break down their stalls for the night.

_What do I bring?_

     I walk the street, trying to think. A merchant has gathered a crowd around his stall with his booming voice, and I filter into the crowd almost on instinct.

_What would she like to eat?_

     “Buy some food from me, kid, or move along. There are more hungry mouths than yours tonight.”

     He’s growing annoyed with me. I wanted to be done, picked up food by now, but I can’t recall what Aurora likes. She has brought me food plenty of times when I come to visit her, but whenever I try to think back on what she enjoys, I come up with a blank.

     Have I really not asked her? I mean, we have talked a great deal. Seeing someone nightly tends to spur a great deal of conversation. Panic starts to settle in, building into a heavy, dense lump in my chest. Have I been doing all the talking? I know for certain she has spoken to me. Maybe I’m just not a good listener?

     Ugh.

     This doesn’t solve anything now. I need to just pick something out.

     “Look now, I’m sorry. I seem to have forgotten what I need and it’s leaving me feeling vexed.”

     He sees another customer stepping around me towards the stall. “Alright, son. Take a moment more, but I have a business to run and you need to buy something or move along.”

     Seem to recall a phrase about breaking bread... people always make that sound like a good thing. What else though? My family always keeps things simple. Father sends Elgar or I to the market to buy whatever is cheapest. Since we eat stew most nights, it doesn’t really matter what we buy. Aside from the fruit, which is only mornings or backdrop settings, all the ingredients get shoved into the pot with some stock and left over the fire for most of the day.

     That way, we can spend more time with our easel honing our craft instead of in the kitchen wasting away of over fuel. Father calls food fuel. He always says there’s not point in spending money on something temporary when you can spend it on something you make permanent. I’m used to the stews, soups, overboiled mashes. It makes little difference as long as I’m not struck by sickness later.

     I’ve never given it second thought until recently.

     As I’ve spent time with Aurora, though, my horizons have been... broadened. Whenever I come by her room to see her, she has always managed to keep food and water brought up from earlier meals to share with me. As if the gesture itself were not kindness enough, I often find that I actually enjoy the food she brings back. Fruits, nuts and veggies. I’ve eaten these all before, but never in such variety. Or outside a of bowl.

     Oh, and the meats! The meats she brings back are just wonderful! Filled with salt and spices, I can hardly forget them. Even if they’re only a few bites, I wonder if wealthy families always eat that way? Are they only small, bite-sized portions because every bite is filled with more flavors? that has to be horribly cluttering for wherever they eat. Do they spread the plates across the ground, or do they have tables long enough to fit all those plates?

     “Kid, I’ll not tell you again.”

     Snapped from my thoughts back to reality, I still do not know what to buy.

_Fine._

     I’ll just go with what I know.

     “What is your cheapest, unspoiled food?”

     This late in the day, he needs to offload as much as he can so he doesn’t have to save it overnight for morning customers to turn their noses up at. It’s much easier to get a sack full of fruits and such when he’s already tired and more willing to deal.

     There are plums, ripe and ready to eat. I barely manage to get them in the sack before another woman comes up to buy as well. I do have to haggle a little to beat her at the rest of the carrots, but I am practiced enough that neither of them stand a chance.

     Now, to bring the blanket down, hang the bag from a tree limb so that some starving creature won’t ruin the picnic, and find my way back up through the tunnels. By the time I make it to the foundations it’s already dark out. I can’t bring the lantern with me, so I leave it shuttered among the trees and hope that Aurora can make it that far if I help her.

     Passing through the tunnels is a breeze; I listen as always before I open the panel in the wall, and lightly slide across the floor. The hardest part is always the sprint behind the kitchen to the wall of her garden. The second hardest part is getting over the wall quietly and quickly.

     Catching my breath behind the bamboo along the wall, I really hope she’ll be able to make the climb.

     But there, the lighted candle in her room is constant as a star, beckoning me heavenward and into her gentle, welcoming arms.

     She’s been careful tonight. I’ve seen her soft silks, and warm velvets. Tonight she has only worn a simple dark blue hemp tunic over the least amount of underlayers I’ve ever seen. Her shoes show signs of having been remade. She has a dark cloak over it all, to try to prevent the whites of her clothes from giving her away.

     She’s quiet, but I can see in her smile that she is pleased to see me, in her eyes that she is as full of joy as I at this moment. I have to take a breath to slow my heart and keep from trembling. She is steady over the roof tiles, but the tree slows her, even as I show her which branches to hold, which to set her feet on.

     The bamboo are beckoning, but she smiles, O, so sweetly, shakes her head and takes my hand. Pressing against the wall, she bends to creep beneath the floor extending out to form a terrace and leads the way along the house until we reach the far side. She takes a much quicker path from her garden to a door in the wall she has the key for, and out to the hall where the tunnels are. On level ground, she is afraid to run, but on the floor she is silent. Practiced steps. She must have walked this floor over and over as a child to know it so well. She knows the place to press on the panel as well, though she’s unsteady on the ladder.

     In the tunnels, I take the lead. Soon, we are outside, the river roaring below, and then the trees and we’ve safely escaped the beautiful fortress for now.

     “I can’t believe I did that!” She is laughing, her fingers touching her lips, to keep in the extent of her joy.

     “I can’t believe I never thought of looking under the terrace before. Is that door always locked?”

     “Yes. I borrowed the key from one of the sentries today. I’ll just drop it along his path when we go back, so he won’t notice that I had them.” Even in the shadows of the trees, where the blue of her clothes threatens to become a shadow itself, she is radiant.

     Stop staring.

     “Right! I promised you an adventure. Are you ready?”

     “As if that wasn’t adventure already! Yes, please lead the way. I’m ever so very ready.”

 

 

 

_Her eyes were shining brighter than the morning star; and she began to speak gently, and softly, with angelic voice..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's DIvine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics.
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from:   
> *Never Forget You*  
> [Songwriters: Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike / Zara Maria Larsson / Arron Carl Davey]  
> *Waiting for Love*  
> [Songwriters: Tim Bergling / Simon Aldred / Salem Al Fakir / Vincent Pontare / Martin Garrix]  
> *Faded*  
> [Songwriters: Alan Walker / Anders Froen / Gunnar Greve / Jesper Borgen]
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.


	4. Quali fioretti dal notturno gelo chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol li 'mbianca, si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora enjoys a night out, and discovers a rising danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

_Can I tell you something just between you and me?_

_When I hear your voice, I know I'm finally free_

_Every single word is perfect as it can be_

_And I need you here with me_

 

 

 

     He stops before we arrive wherever it is that he’s taking us. “Will you close your eyes? It’s a surprise.”

     Laughing without trying to keep quiet is such a relief. “I can’t even keep my footing with them open. I would hate to slip down the rest of the way because I didn’t watch where I stepped.”

     “I won’t let you fall.”

     His voice catches my concern, stills it; I breathe deeply, smelling the soft leaf mold and the petrichor hanging in the air. I nod, close my eyes, feel his palm against my eyelashes as he intertwines the fingers of his other hand through mine. My face warms against the cold air.

     It’s only a few steps, truly, but it allows me to quieten the fluttering in my heart just enough that it won’t hold in my words. The sound of our feet crushing through the upper layers of remnant silt and the occasional slide of pebbles down beside us becomes louder until it abruptly softens and I feel something springy beneath my slipper.

     "Alright. Now look!" He sounds elated and nervous all at once, but his voice is steady and loud enough to speak over the calling nightbirds and rushing waters. He takes his hand away from over my eyes and my skin feels cooler for the barest second.

     It is so sweet; this anticipation, this promise, this unexpected darkness. The air here is damp and a little heavy, like the air near the pool in the garden; I've heard running water as we approached but I was too busy trying to find my footing, even with Cailen's help, to pay much attention. It sounds deep, constant; few if any rocks are breaking the surface. A fish leaps; the sound fills the air, mingles with the settling birds and the constant insects chirring.

     Something whines as it zips past my ear, but it doesn't bite.

     I open my eyes.

     We’re beside the Karun, which is so much closer than I expected, and moving in slow and broad lazy floods over the roots of trees, hissing quietly against the hanging blades of rushes. The gentle smell of mint blends with the water waking the earth in the rocks; the greenness of the mosses we’ve stepped on.

     There’s a blanket spread wide, in this little clearing, a full sackcloth bag and a shuttered lantern on one corner. The pin prick design in the lantern shutters send little lights dancing over the blanket, like little golden dust motes. Even without another step, I can see them dancing as constellations beneath the trees, little cousins to the great celestial spheres above.

     The trees naturally open into this clearing, roots spreading like arms extended to welcome family amid great boulders. Through the break in the foliage, I see the millions and millions of stars overhead, distant clouds of color catching stars in their spread like a fisherman's net full of shining pearly fish. I recognize some of the constellations, but somehow I see the stars here even beyond what I know from my garden. If I turn, I know I will see again the faint orange glow of the fires at home, but the cliff shelters us and I can’t see even the top walls from down here.

     A fish leaps out of the water and startles me. I am lost somewhere out in the huge darkness that surrounds us. The trees closest to us barely catch the lantern light, so all around is like a great hall with pillars stretching up and up and vanishing again, under a blanket of glory.

     I look to Cailen, backlit by the little light of the lantern. "How did you even know where you were going?" I’m either out of breath from the last portion of the walk, or from the scene I’m somehow a part of. Perhaps even both.

     "I come here often enough. The light is usually perfect. Just wait until the moon comes up!" He gently tugs on my hand, pulling me to the picnic.

     The ground feels strange still under my feet, but at least when I sit on the blanket that much is familiar. There is nearly always some guard between myself and the earth, some barrier. It’s not that I need it, or even want it, most of the time; it’s simply that for decorum’s sake, I’m not mussing myself up. Which is ridiculous to think, on this nighttime excursion.

     "What shall we do while we wait, then?"

     "I brought another surprise." He drops my hand and dives for the bag. I carefully resettle onto a corner of the blanket, where I can stretch my legs without taking the entirety of the space. Another mosquito zips past my eyelashes. I wonder if there are dragonflies during the day here, like there are in our garden by the pond.

     I remember once, Calla brought home a bowl with a dragonfly trapped inside. We tied a silk thread around its thorax and she held onto the string so tightly for the rest of the day that Sage couldn’t even persuade her to let it loose during her bath until I promised to take it for her. The color was like orange lilies and blue lapis, orange atop and blue beneath, with faint orange like ink tracing through the veins of the wings. The membrane was so thin and delicate that I was afraid that a careless breath might break one into a splintered spiderweb, killing it instantly.

     The scent of plums is stronger than I expected, and recalls me to myself. It’s a full scent, as dark and sweet as the color of the skins. The plum blossoms in the garden largely didn’t survive the rains this spring, but I can’t help but remember the pale pink petals against the white walls. The darkness of the plums seems more suited to the night, just as the light-colored blossoms almost glowed under the sunlight.

     “How did you find these? I thought with all of the rain this year I’d have to wait.”

     “I’m resourceful,” he says, holding out one to me.

     I take the plum and hold it close in both of my palms, feeling the weight of it, letting the skin rest against my lips. It feels full to bursting, with a slight waxiness my lips stick against. The skin parting under my teeth resists until suddenly it splits and the juice spills into my mouth, sweet and then so tart that it’s almost bitter when I taste the skin.

     “It’s delicious,” I say, between mouthfuls. “All of this is so beautiful. And you can see it whenever you like?”

     "Well, whenever I'm able to. My father tries to keep me busy during the days, but I can usually find time to skirt out for some fun." He bites into the plum in his hand; some of the juice drips down his wrist.

     I imagine my father taking the time to keep me busy, and can only conjure instead the image of his face frozen like it was at dinner last night, all tight lines from his brow and his mouth as if he were carved of petrified wood and required the seams to create even the tight-lipped disapproval he sheds in my direction.

     But none of that. Nothing from the daylight belongs here, now.

     Finishing my plum, I turn to bury the pit, carefully pushing and scraping at the dirt beside the blanket until I can work the plum pit into the ground. It tucks away under the sandy-clay riparian soil like a secret kept by lips pressed tightly closed. I press that pit into the secrecy of the earth, smoothing dirt overtop it like a burial mound. I wonder if it will have a chance to sprout or if I've doomed it to rot away without ever seeing the sun.

     "Were you very busy today?" I ask, to break the melancholy that has touched the moment.

     "Not busy enough to keep me from this." His usual grin sprawling across his face, proud of himself and a little more certain, means he's more likely to tell me stories; when he's feeling this good, he’ll be less focused on specifics and details and more on the telling.

     "So have you had any more valiant haggling adventures at the market recently?" I settle back onto my the heel of my left hand, and glance upwards to see if the soft light is beginning to bloom from the moon into the heavens, but the planets slowly passing overhead are still the brightest bodies in the sky.

     "Not so much. I need to give the poor merchants a break every so often otherwise they’ll catch on. Can't have that. Though I did have a marvelous time getting those plums you so enjoy!"

     "That sounds like so much more fun than what I did today. Will you tell me about it?" I ask, remembering hours of politics and economics in the morning and languages in the afternoon. The hours have become concerning, as I read through merchant letters and other communiques that mention again and again how erratic and closed-in the new king is becoming, and the barrage of incidents can't be good for the overall security of his kingdom.

     But I'm not home right now, and because Cailen is telling the story I wanted I put the thoughts out of my mind until tomorrow.

     I reach for another plum.

     "If you insist. So, there I was dirty and mussed sitting in the woods. You see, I was making sure this space was still vacant of any vagrants or rapscallions who might defile our fun."

     I wonder what he would do if he ran into a 'rapscallion' in the woods. Knowing him, he'd probably close his ears to their arguments and just badger them into leaving, no matter how much bigger they were. Or at least try to make it seem that way, anyway, when he told it to me later. It would be an epic, worthy of heroes and gods alike.

     "I searched under every rock on the ground and leaf on the trees. I even dunked my head beneath the water to ensure no one would be hiding there, but I spent so much time searching that I realized I had completely forgotten to acquire any food! Blast, I thought! Who would want to sit in the woods alone without any food! Especially after you have shown me such kindness on the many nights when I visit your room."

     I consider pointing out that the kindness I'm offering is considerably small in comparison with the risks he runs, but he continues his retelling and the moment passes. I will mention it when he's leaving so he won't have as much time to argue about it. Besides, my mouth is full of the sweet nectar of the plums, and I don’t want to stop him from telling.

     "How could I be so foolish? The sun was still three palms from the land, so I knew I had time. I quickly sprinted through the woods back to town, effortlessly avoiding the tree limbs and roots, as I have spent so much time here that I knew each plant's placement by heart."

     I wish I knew a place so well that I could run through it without falling. I don't even care where, inside or outside, big or small, the idea of being so sure footed that you don't fall is something that I cannot completely connect with my own awkwardness. I have learned to walk more carefully because no matter how graceful my dance instructor says my movements have been becoming, I fall into things and over things and through things enough that my mother refuses to walk with me even from my lessons to the Hall for all my blushing and apologizing.

     "Once back in town, I rushed to the fruit stalls and scanned what they had. Luckily I happen to be close with one of the vendors, and he was able to help me promptly before some of the other buyers could get their grubby hands on anything. I looked through what I'd grabbed: bread, dried meat, a few carrots, but nothing sweet! Normally I wouldn't care, but I learned from our many talks that your family eats in multiple courses, and one of those courses is always sweet. I wouldn't want to appear less qualified at bringing you food than they are!"

     I could tell him that it isn’t a matter of qualification, but of monetary accumulation. I could tell him that I haven't enjoyed any of the dinners so much as I have this evening; but if I do his ego might grow so big that he won't be able to help me back through the tunnel. Besides, I brought something else for him today anyway and I can save the words for another time, when he might be more inclined to hear me.

     "So I ask the man, "What do you have that's sweet?" Well, he rambled off a bunch of fruits, but only one of the many names stuck out. Do you know which?"

     Laughing, knowing the answer already, I shake my head, and feel the lightness of having only two kanzashi pinning my hair up. I had to wear more than usual today when I met the lord steward of Marin Bay, a tidy little port town further along the coast from where we live.

     He is triumphant, waving one in the air."It was the plums! I knew you would appreciate those, so I asked for a couple of the freshest he had.”

     I cannot help but reach for another of the plums, and take another bite. It's just as firm and sweet as the first one, like tasting a raindrop in a summer sun shower.

     "Unfortunately, as I was asking this, some shriveled water hag snatched up the very plums I'd requested. The merchant tried to ask the hag nicely, to tell her that I needed those plums, but being the waterlogged soul that she was, she refused. She claimed that it was 'first come, first serve'. Well, this just would not do! So I stepped up to the water hag and asked, 'Please, I don't have much, but I will pay for all your food and more if I can please have those plums.'”

     He changes his voice also when he jumps into his best impressions of the hag and merchant. I bite my lip and put on my diplomatic face so I don't interrupt his storytelling by snickering at the way he portrays the hag.

     "'The wicked hag sneered with delight at seeing me in such a predicament. 'I will not accept your offer, even if it is fair and generous. I need these for myself. You see, I rub them on my clothes to get the smell of bog out.'"

     I’m not allowed to clean my own laundry, but even so, I'm fairly certain that the woman would have been better off smelling of bog than weeks-old fruit-stained mildewy fabric.

     "'You're not even going to eat them?' I asked her, aghast!

     "'No. I just like the smell. I find the taste quite revolting, actually,' she jeered.

     "I knew then that this could not stand. As she left, I bought a few tomatoes from the vendor. He was so broken up over not being able to sell me the plums, that he gave the rest of my food for free. I cleverly colored the tomatoes darker with the coal I had in my pocket. I slowly pursued the water hag until she was in the most crowded avenue I could find. That's when I struck!

     “Literally. I slammed myself into her making the food spill everywhere. In all the confusion I swept up the plums and replaced them with the tomatoes. Water hags not being known for their sight, she didn't even notice the difference and just snarled at me as she recollected her things and went on her way. Being victorious, I picked up the last of our food and went to find you, where the story of our adventure picks back up."

     There’s no possible way for me to keep a straight face. "It tastes all the sweeter now that I know how much effort went to getting it. Thank you!" It really does, too, although I hope that, if the hag actually exists, she least realized something was wrong before she rubbed all of the tomatoes into her laundry.

     I finish my third one and leave the others for him. I wipe my fingers clean on the moss, before I reach into the pocket inside my cloak to bring his gift out.

     "I have something for you actually, though I'm afraid it's a lot less exciting. I was hoping you might draw something for me, so I brought these." I set the roll of paper-mulberry kozogami paper, ink stone, a stick of the pretty black ink I write with, and the new brush in his hands carefully so I don't lose them in the dark.

     "Look at that!" He's running his fingers along the bristles of the brush, damping the ink stone to test the solidity of the color. "These are nice. What did you have in mind?" Even the paper is under scrutiny although it seems to be deemed acceptable after he curls it into a tube and then smooths it as flat as possible.

     I haven’t thought of anything. I don’t know what I want to remember most about tonight, besides the light in his eyes when he’s focused on his painting; and I don’t dare ask him for something as incriminating as that. "Oh, something dynamic with fish, perhaps. Unless you have a better idea?"

     He's as quick as ever to rule out the possibility. "No, no, your ideas are wonderful. Though I may have scared the fish off earlier when I was searching around. Let me check." He hops to his feet and runs over to the rock leaning in over the water, where it provides a shady refuge during the day for the little swimming things. His scramble up the rock is so quick and apparently unbalanced that for a moment I think he's going to fall in.

     After some squinting into the starlit depths he shakes his head. "Look at that, some of the smaller ones had the gall to come back. Fortunate enough for us though, as now I can actually paint what you want."

     "I'm glad they're back to help, but I'm sure your boundless creativity would have served just as well even if they weren't there." Watching his face, I feel the giggles coming on. He clearly misses my light inflection and takes it as a straightforward comment instead, puffing up even more proudly.

     "Right you are! I'll just use the river as a base concept and grow off of that. I can paint the fish with my spin on the idea." He sets river rocks down on the corners of the paper, then repurposes the saucer he packed for food to mix ink and water on. As he works, he grows less focused on my presence; so much so, that even before brush touches paper he's lost track of anything outside of his design. Nothing distracts him.

     I, on the other hand, see a bat fly past out of the corner of my eye. I try to follow its path but it moves like a ragged scrap of fabric in a monsoon wind, and soon I'm not sure if I'm watching one bat many times or many bats once. A moth lands atop the lantern but when I shoo it away from the fire it flies off east.

     I lay down on the blanket to watch Cailen's hands dart jerkily across the paper, quick flicks with his wrist, drawing something like the lines of the river, or so smoothly he might be playing snake charmer to the ink, letting it coil and slither and drip into the perfect coils and curves of fish swimming caught in an instant on the paper. I watch him frown when the ink threatens to clump or run thin, smile with just the corner of his mouth for an instant when he draws the line just so, hold his breath when drawing a straight line for fear of an uneven pressure or unknown particle beneath the paper causing imperfections. It grows easier to see his expressions after a time and I realize that I've missed the actual rise of the full moon from beneath the horizon and that she has taken her first steps into the archway of the sky.

     The moonlight makes the world look as if it is dreaming, creating the world of tales where magic can turn an entire room to glass and the people inside to shades of themselves. I've heard tales of moon-madness, mortals becoming something other than human, something beast-like and hungry.

     Right now, in the witching hours of the night, out in the trees, I would believe that to be truth.

     I stare up at Luna’s face and wonder if the light I absorb now will be reflected later when I look someone in the eyes, two tiny moons caught in gray clouds giving away my excursions.

     One of the reports from the northern lands claimed a village had hired a man to make them a wall of cold iron, silver, and marble to protect them against the bandits in the wastes. The man reportedly completed the task in an hour and in such a way that the construction was bound irreversibly, but the villagers all felt the need to ask the mayor to include the fact that the builder’s eyes glowed magically, lighting the inn he stayed at so brightly that no one realized for an hour that the torches in the room had blown out until he left the room to go to bed and the light went with him. There was apparently also a symbol on his forehead which grew more bright the more work he did. The mayor was clearly skeptical, but I rather liked the idea of a magic man who brought the sun with him wherever he went.

     I watch Luna crossing the sky for a long time, watching her climb through the houses of the constellations. She is deliberate in her movement through the crystal spheres in the heavens; perhaps it is to be certain that her steps will not break the diaphanous compounds of time and heaven where she rests herself in her fullness.

     Time. I look to the lantern, already beginning to show that the light inside is beginning to burn less fiercely than when we arrived. I stretch, stiffer from lying on the ground than I thought I would be. It isn’t until I sit up that I realize I’ve had my back to a rock and my body is only now complaining of the fact.

     Cailen is still so intent on the page that he doesn't even look up until I stand beside him, set my hand on his to prevent him from dipping the brush into the ink stone again.

     "I apologize for interrupting this masterpiece, but Luna is much past her rising peak. As much as I enjoy being here, I do want to be certain I’m home again before anyone notices." I feel almost as though the words are being dragged out of me. I don't want this to end — even though I know that it has to. Perhaps it will happen again, if I am very lucky.

     He returns to the moment in an instance, the distance in his eyes vanishing as swiftly as lightning on the plains. "Oh, you're right. We should get moving. I sketched down everything I need from this place anyhow."

     "I’m looking forward to seeing it when you’ve finished!" I wonder how much of this scene he'll rework in his mind before he's done, how much there is left for him to do.

     We take a minute to make sure everything is packed in the bundle of the blanket, and the lantern is trimmed. I look around, hoping to see the path but just as earlier I can't tell the difference between one gap in the trees and the next.

     I'll have to ask him to teach me, sometime, but for now, "You'll have to lead the way. I must confess that I'm a little lost..."

     "I can do that, no issue." He slings the blanket-parcel over his shoulder. "Just hold on to me and I'll get us out of here in no time."

     His hand is warm when I take it, only a few calluses brushing against my palm.

     "I'll look forward to when we can come back again," I say, looking around as we head up the trail to the bottom of the cliffs. The climb is mostly uneventful, though I do lose my footing once and send a spray of pebbles and scree off the edge of a small fissure to the ground forty feet below.

     The creep along the wall is easy, and passing through the tunnels is second nature to Cailen by now.

     Before I climb the ladder I set my hand on his shoulder.

     “You don’t have to come with me. I can get back from here, and I don’t want you to be caught because I can’t run-” the need to whisper now that we’re back in the domain of my parents falls on me with heavy familiarity. I’m fairly certain the hardest part for me will be the tree. I think I can manage it.

     Probably.

     “I’m going with you. We’ll be fast enough. You don’t have to worry about me, because we’ll be fine.”

     I would hesitate but that’s only more likely to put him in danger.

     Passing the nightingale floor is still harder for him, even when I show him where to step to keep it quiet. Passing across the moonlit grounds is heartstopping for me, and I’m nearly certain for a moment that I’ve lost the key to the gate, but then we’re through to creep beneath the floors to the bamboo. It’s lucky that we’re both so slim, or we’d never make it through. Calla and I used to chase the cat through here when I was younger and she was...

     But we’re through, and edge behind the bamboo to wait for the sentries to pass. As soon as he’s out of sight along the corner of the house, and before the next one passes we dart across the garden, to climb the tree trunk to the roof. I do need Cailen’s help, it turns out, but we’re on the roof with almost no noise. He drops back down out of the tree as soon as I reach my window; he’s gotten much better at landing well on the ground again. He crosses back across through the bamboo and up over the wall out of the garden before the next sentry can see him.

     As soon as he’s left, I carefully ease inside the window, replace the candle, and pull the curtain shut.

     The house is quiet; the clock in my room ticks softly, and I hear the gears catch slightly as they pass into the Hour of the Ox. Faintly, the sound of snoring makes it through the wood panelling.

     I pull my socks off and clean my shoes off with them before I set my shoes back where they were before I left, and bundle my socks into the hole I’ve cut under the mattress. I’ll wash them eventually, but for now they’re the pair I use to I go out at night and it’s easier not explaining how they’ve gotten so dusty.

     The fire has banked to dim coals weaving fine traceries of red and deep gold like the outline of scales over the black and white skin of ash. The room is warm, so much warmer than down near the water that I shiver again with the delayed reaction and go sit in my pillow pile.

     I reach for the nuts I asked brought up tonight, cracking the shells while I think about last night especially. When Cailen eats, his hands move as quickly as when he’s sketching to pick food up, but as soon as it's in his mouth, he slows, savors it.

     Even these nuts, encased in such thick shells that I have to use a metal grip to break them free. Even these ones slow him down. I set one on my tongue, thinking about the flavor, the lightness of it, the way the distinctive aftertaste hangs for several moments after I swallow.

     How many flavors am I too familiar with to appreciate? What spices were really used with dinner tonight?

     Even the plums tasted different tonight, fuller, sweeter, more bitter; as if the flavor has room to expand outside in the open air.

     I've never really felt how compressed I am by the walls until tonight.

     But I’ve spent enough time indulging that sort of thought. I toss the nut shells into the coal bed of the fire, fetch my hairbrush and pull my kanzashi out, setting them precisely in the same place in my dresser drawer so no one will notice they were gone.

     Maybe I’ll tell Cailen about the man with the golden eyes the next time; that might be interesting to him, if I tell the report as narrative instead of letter form. I wonder if he would paint that scene if I describe it well enough.

     When I finish brushing my hair I lie down in bed, pull the covers over me and try to sleep.

     I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep before I’m half-woken by the sound of hooves and shouting at the gate. A messenger, from the sound of it. Before long there is stirring and voices spring up in my parent’s rooms. Normally I might try to eavesdrop, but I would rather not explain further why I look so tired to Lady Sage. She might even be pleased at my sense of self-control, and if it’s important news everyone will be talking about it when the sun is up. There might even be more news to be had by then.

     I pull the pillow over my ear, and ignore the footsteps running up and down the main stairs; they are hard to ignore, even so. And even the dreams are strange; voices bleeding over one another becoming figures surrounding a war table, glimmering and lifting mountain ranges or drawing down seas. Impossible to parse. Impossible to continue to fathom meaning from spectre. When I wake, the room is still, and sunlight pours through the window; dust motes hang in the air as golden languid flecks of zested orange in honey. My pillow is on the floor; my blanket sliding off to join it.

     The messenger must have been more important than I realized; Lady Sage would have woken me otherwise. She must have been called to counsel to attend my mother, which means that the matters have grown diplomatically difficult. It means I will not have lessons today, I suppose.

     Still, there’s point in trying to sleep again, and even less in trying to eavesdrop. Speaking with Hashi will be my best hope; these meetings fall under the purview of his stewardship, and he always listens to the late night meetings. Besides, I haven’t had the chance in the last few days.

     Preparing for my day is more complicated without help, much to my dismay. I hope it won’t be too much of an imposition for whoever it is when they are sent up to help in Lady Sage’s absence. Soothing in anticipation for the business of the day. Deliberation and physical movement blended into enaction.

     There is a very timid knock on the door to my sitting room.

     “Please, enter,” I say, laying out the kanzashi I want for the day. My favorites; fragile, glass-petaled flowers at the tips so they catch the light and color themselves depending on perspective. The hydrangea one in particular has such delicate petals that they flutter in even the slightest breath, ranging translucent shining to pure shadow. If only it were serendipitous with all of my silks and brocades.

     Egret slides open the door, bows, and rises smiling at me. “I’ve been sent to help you dress, Lady Aurora. Lady Sage has been called into the hall to speak with your father about the news from last night.”

     Her presence brightens the room, her fingers confident when she takes the brush from my hands.

     “I am very grateful for the help. I don’t quite know what I’m doing, but another pair of hands might be what’s needed,” I add, handing her the hairbrush first.

     She laughs and takes the kanzashi. Between the two of us, it only takes a few minutes longer than usual to dress. “What else will you like my assistance for, my lady?”

     My skirts are settled and my lighter, indoors coat is slipped on; all that is left is for me to find Hashi, which Egret won’t be able to help me with this time of day anyway.

     “I am well. Thank you, Egret. I won’t take anymore of your time.”

     She bows, and hurries off to the next task which certainly is only one in a long list. I follow her out into the hall after a moment, but turn the other way down the hall, towards the storeroom. Servants hurry to and fro, and there I see Hashi.

     His face changes as soon as he sees me, from business to joy, and he bows. “Lady Aurora. What brings you down here so early in the morning? I was told you were going to be studying until the midday meal.”

     “I’m here, in part, to welcome you home! It is so busy today; but you have only just returned from seeing your daughter! How is she? Did the blessing go well?” I fold my hands into my sleeves and wait quietly for him, as if I’m not worried. I’m likely safe, but it’s always possible that I have less time than I think and I’ll be pulled away for my studies.

     “It went very well. She was proud to bring Aravinda before the priestess, and the ceremony was set on a particularly auspicious day. The cricket under the altar chirped the entire time.” When he speaks, his smile softens and the wrinkles lining his face become more akin to the soft ridges in beaten cream. Even his eyes change their hue, from a dark hue to lively flax.

     “I’m so pleased to hear it!” The hours and hours of planning he put into the even have borne fruit. “And it was sunny; I had worried you wouldn’t have a clear day for it, but it sounds like everything ordered itself beautifully.”

     “It very much did. But,” the lines in his face crease with the creeping veil is drawing itself across his face, with his changing thoughts, “What did you actually want you to ask me about, my lady?”

     “You’re worried,” I say quietly. Whatever he overheard has made him grow old so quickly in front of me.

     He considers me a long moment, long enough to feel my heartbeat through my neck. then sighs and crosses his arms. “You want me to tell you what happened in the hall last night. With the messenger and all.” His face is grave.

     “I wouldn’t trust anyone else,” I point out. “Especially if it’s this important.”

     He bows his head, squares his feet, then offers his hand to lead me out of the constant flow of people. We sit down in one of the halls where we won’t be overheard without seeing. “Very well. Your father mustn’t hear that I told you this. Last night, one of our messengers arrived from one of the border posts. The news is that the King in the west has beheaded his wife, after accusing her of high treason. He then locked himself into his rooms and refuses to come out, even to eat. Your father was in the midst of negotiations with the ambassador; a letter sent with our messenger was to bring instruction to him. It is currently unclear what the fallout will be. The family of the wife is demanding compensation in some form and building up a massive presence behind their gates.”

     “Your brother lives near the border, does he not? Are they well, still?” I take his hand in mine; it is shaking, slightly. His won’t be the only family threatened by this.

     “We were lucky, my lady. They traveled here for the blessing. They’re staying in the loft in the barn for a few weeks. We thought they might be... more comfortable there.”

     Hashi’s family home is so small. The added members joining them in the barn will overtax even his best estimates.

     “Tell the laundry you’ll be taking my winter linens for a few weeks. They can do without airing them out every week, and I won’t need them for a while anyway.”

     “My lady, I don’t think I can justify this to your parents. I’m sure they wouldn’t be pleased.”

     “My father won’t notice. He’s busy focusing on the news the messenger brought and how it will impact the plans in place. Mother will be helping him, and won’t notice so long as we find more somewhere and bring mine back in time for winter cleaning. She doesn’t worry about laundry minutiae unless Ayame brings it to her attention. I’ll just tell Ayame that she doesn’t need to mention it unless we haven’t solved it by then. Besides, they both keep telling me how much more generous I must be with my actions. What is this if not taking them at their own words?”

     His brow furrows, and I see him tapping out his thoughts on his knee with his free hand. “You mean to hide behind suggestion and interpretation.”

     “I mean to ask forgiveness rather than permission, especially since you are both deserving and in need. Take the sheets, Hashi. I know your wife will find some in the market, or ask the weavers to make more for you. If anyone asks, you’re acting on my orders.”

     There’s the slightest relaxation in his hand. “Thank you, lady Aurora. My wife and daughter will be grateful for your generosity.”

     “Will you please, if you hear anything else about the king, tell me? Father will be so wrapped up with the details, and Mother will focus on the politics, and if I don’t hear it from you, I won’t have any idea of what’s happening.”

     “I will share what information I find myself privy to, my lady, if you will agree to keep from attempting eavesdropping in the meantime.”

     “It’s agreed. I’m going to speak to Ayame now, so there’s no concern later. Please send my love to your family, and my congratulations to your daughter.”

     “Of course.” He ducks his head in an informal bow, as I leave.

 

 

_...I am afraid that he may already be so lost that I have risen too late to help him, according to what I have heard of him..._

 

 

_Your face, it haunts my once pleasant dreams_

_Your voice, it chased away all the sanity in me_

_These wounds won’t seem to heal, this pain is just too real_

_There’s just too much that time cannot erase_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's Divine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics.
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from:  
> *Here With Me*  
> Songwriters: Marshmello / Iain Andrew Cook / Lauren Eve Mayberry / Martin Clifford Doherty / Steve Mac
> 
> *My Immortal*  
> Songwriters: Ben Moody / David Hodges / Amy Lee
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.


	5. Intrai per lo cammino alto e silvestro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil makes deals, and hitches a ride. Aurora and Cailen discuss travel and art.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

     “It was the will of Fate, and she would not waver in this. I will not change my mind either.”

     “Perhaps Fate will play a hand inclining Hearts towards charitable action. I have already arranged for my own accommodation aboard her ship; and as amusing as I would find it for you to stow away, having her knowledge of your presence will likely save me the inconvenience of mollification.” She yawns, her palms pushing the air away in an elongated, uncoiling stretch. Her wrist brushes his collarbone as she draws back into herself. “I don’t suppose that pompous idiot has finished explaining the rules yet, has he?”

     The pompous idiot in question has not, in fact, finished. “The prize, ladies and gentlemen, is beyond description! The barest of rumor must have reached your ears, for you to have gathered with me this day. I promise you, it will not disappoint. It has been protected for these thousands of years by an enchantment so devilish and impossible that even the great wizard, the renowned Metal Willow could not undo it, and so dangerous that not even the adventuring team of Sky Leopard and Ruby-Oak Queen could pass through. But how will any of you? I’m so glad you asked!”

     She groans quietly. “And of course she’s taking notes. The poor fool had better hope that none of this is actively interesting to her. You will have to speak with her when he finishes.” She reaches down, to pick up one of the orbs. Tumbling it through her fingers, she catches him staring and shrugs. Her sleeve slides a little further down her shoulder; he swallows hard, feeling his hands suddenly out of place.

     “Come now,” she’s smirking when he meets her eyes again. “Surely that’s not a flush I see? I’m certain we could come to some form of arrangement, if you’d like. I apparently have time.”

     “No, that’s not- I’m not-”

     “Oh, dear; please tell me I will not lose interest so quickly in this game. You’re making it easy for me, of course?” She sighs. “I suppose you’ll have to do for now. If you have any intention of remaining with me in the grander scheme of things, I anticipate you learning several new skills rapidly. Unless you choose to leave; you may not have that choice, forever.” She glides between her emotions swiftly, serpentine over the glass-like thoughts that catch light and brighten to be seen. “Continue, Virgil; perhaps your tale-telling will entertain more than this game. Were there many picnics? Did you succeed in whisking her away, before Heaven had its way with her? Or did the great abydocmist take her the morning after?”

     “I- the great what?”

     She tosses the orb into the air, catches it. “Never mind that. How long did the subterfuge last?”

     The light of the orb reminds him of the moon, brighter against the shadows that surround her. “Months, maybe. It wasn’t always picnics. There were books - with maps and other paintings, from all around the world. You’d tell me stories about them, tell me what the languages were, and the histories.”

     “How idyllic. Did you plan to save the world, then?” Her fingers twist slightly when she releases the orb, spinning it. She remembers darkness, candled midnight — the first ache of a heart realizing immense consequence.

     And for a moment, he feels the remembering. It slides past, buried in the echoes of his own making and is gone. The inevitable questioning, but inverted. A determined ending might serve as a beginning.

     “You asked once if knowing that you could fix a thing meant that you had to.”

     “And? Your conclusion?”

     A conclusion which, in painful hindsight, had likely lead to this moment. “From a painter’s perspective, an error on the canvas should be handled so the end result isn’t anything less than ideal.”

     She laughs. “Or you take to your canvas with a knife; I’ve seen painters more like to do so than try to remedy the mistake, however minute. Was that only your opinion for painting?”

     “Painting was the most important thing to me. It was what I knew.” The memory, as clearly painted as any oil on canvas.

      _“You say that as if there could be anything more important than art!? Food may feed you. Water may satiate your thirst. Leathers and pelts may keep you protected from the seasons. Art, art fulfills your deepest needs. So in a roundabout way, I’d say yes. It probably is true of everything.”_

_“And when it’s people? when they do something objectively wrong, and you can stop them, do you have to?”_

_“Well, I generally don’t like people putting their nose in matters that don’t involve them. Most people like to tell others what they should be doing, even if they don’t understand how. Which is endlessly aggravating. But you are smarter than most people, so I would trust you know how to fix something if you say you know how, and if you know you definitely should.”_

     “Virgil, if you’d like the time to daydream you might just say so.”

     “No, I was thinking. You reminded me, was all.” She certainly wouldn’t answer the same, now. But neither would he, and perhaps this inevitable drawing together would serve exactly to fix what had gone wrong before.

     Whatever it was that led her to pass through the land of the dead shrouded and ghostly, as if when she died, the colors bled from her too.

 

 

 

_Now go, and with your ornamented speech and whatever else is needed for his escape help him so that I may be consoled._

 

 

_For every tyrant a tear for the vulnerable_

_In every lost soul the bones of a miracle_

_For every dreamer a dream, we’re unstoppable_

_with something to believe in_

 

 

 

     The tree in the garden is easier to climb every time. The tree itself must be ruled by fate; filled with goodness and the purpose of helping me towards Aurora as she waits. But even so, I am always looking to move faster with the best footholds I’ve found to speed up the process. The calluses this climb has formed make it more difficult to steady my hand while working, but I’d never complain truly. It would suggest that they aren’t worth acquiring.

     I never doubted I could scale a tree before, but it’s nice to know that the confidence is well supported by fact now. Especially since it allows me to reach a better vantage point.

     Climbing through the window always feels like such a victory. There isn’t anywhere that would yield a better view of Aurora, the moment I step down from the window sill. She’s always so happy to see me.

     The sight of her has never failed to inspire me.

     Tonight, the layers of her tunic are as a soft blush rose and pale sunrise gold. The darker color of her underskirt, perhaps the shade of pink sweet pea blossoms? and her sash, break up the flow of the fabric with a soft subtlety hinting at her slenderness beneath all of the silk. Her hair is pinned back by those long glass needles again. Twirled up properly into shining braids and twists, she feels so elegant that I can’t help but feel like I am forced to keep my distance.

     That is to say, in this setting beneath the Lord and Lady’s room, she seems as though she is a living piece of exquisite art. She is so utterly magnificent that she exists separate from me, in a setting that is so unreal it could only exist in the imagination. Here I am just another patron looking upon her.

     This is why I prefer our outings.

     Here, she is welcoming, offering food and water, and the occasional donation to help further my artistic craft.

     When we go out, her hair falls from those perfect knots into more loose curls and waves, long loose strands. Her frame and demeanor become less tightly strung, and for a while I believe I exist within wonderment. I am finally living among inspiration.

     “Cailen?”

     I snap back from these thoughts, as pleasant as they are, and live presently in the current dream. “Sorry. How are you tonight?”

     “I am well. It was a busy day today.” Her smile lights her eyes, as sunlight breaking through clouds. In her hands is a cup of cool water, filled to brim, offered to me with steady hands. “How are you?”

     I down the water quickly, wander away from the window to sit cross-legged on her bed.

     “I’m doing good, lately. I’ve been producing some of my best work and I feel like life is really lining up for me.” Destiny smiles upon me. The vastness of success is within my reach, now. “My father is starting to take notice of my skill, and is giving me more and more responsibility in the shop. Which is a bit of a two-edged sword as I have to run around more, but I don’t mind that so much when it means I get to work on the more important pieces with him.”

     She sits beside me, folding her legs under herself tidily.

     “I’m so happy to hear that! Is your brother still jealous?”

     “I would say he is finally capable of showing a wide variety of range in color now, though it seems exclusive to shades of green,” I say grinning.

     She laughs, a little tightly. “Sounds like you’ll be stepping into the limelight a lot more often now. I am glad that you’ll be busy.”

     “Well, it is certainly nice to finally be appreciated. Even though I hate thinking of being kept too busy. After all, I can scarcely imagine that I would be doing as well as I am without you.” My smile stretches across my face so much that my cheeks are sore from it. There is so much to do, so much to learn from my father.

     “You don’t give yourself enough credit, you know.” She’s playing with the end of her sleeve, running her fingers up and down it, feeling the seams. From here, her lashes look like mimosa blossoms. If I were to paint her just now, I would need the slightest touch from a fan brush to capture the transience.

     “If you’re the one saying so, it must be true.” Her praise is like the nectar of the gods, raining down upon me, even so briefly. “Though that doesn’t diminish your part in the grand scheme of it all.”

     “You do perfectly well without me, though. I’d warrant you would come up with amazing things even if you didn’t see me for months.” She tosses the words into the air in light strokes, like a light wash of paint, but she’s too serious.

     “Well, yeah. I probably could make a few things here and there, but I spend way too long daydreaming of impossibilities. Why give the time of day to a ludicrous thought such as being apart?” I stretch across her bed, letting the luxurious fabrics fluff around me and relax my tensed up shoulders. Something about the idea of her leaving makes my breath catch under my ribs. Perhaps there is something wrong.

     “I will have to see the rest of the world sometime; as do you.”

     I roll back over onto my side, struggling to tuck my elbow beneath me among the thick layer of feathers in her mattress. It’s always more difficult to be taken seriously when you can’t even find your balance while laying down. This feels like the sort of thing that would normally be simpler. Maybe it’s all the pressure in the air.

     “Of course we do! I think there are many wonders out there waiting to be captured and immortalized through my work, but I just always envisioned we would do that together.”

     The room is warm, and my hands feel sweaty. I somehow can’t get comfortable in the soft, gentle comfort of her blankets and pillows.

     “We will; but perhaps you might sometimes like to surprise me with what you paint instead of me always seeing it firsthand.” She looks up finally, and meets my eyes, her expression as unreadable as it usually is when other people look or speak to her.

     “I suppose that makes sense... I should want to surprise you every now and then. There wouldn’t really be anything wrong with spending a week or so apart to make something completely new. It might even be fun.” Ugh, even my throat didn’t want those last words to squeeze through. What is it about those stormy, ardent eyes, like the sun in a tempest? Every time I am forced to give into her every whim.

     That isn’t really fair. I suppose I don’t give into everything, but I would be lying if I said she wasn’t as persuasive as Luna herself coming down from the heavens and offering a lip-locked embrace.

     “Do you mind so much? I thought you liked to amaze me with unexpected inspiration.” She drops the edge of her sleeve and reaches out to wrap her fingers in mine. Her hands are soft as my father’s most prized watercolor brushes, and glide over the calluses on mine. “Remember the plums?”

     “The plums were very nice. Perfect, really.” I close my fingers around hers. “I guess you’re right. I do enjoy surprising you, and I haven’t done so nearly enough.”

     “You could paint me something really special if I took longer, right? If it was more than a week?” She’s smiling still, but her eyes are watching mine closely.

     “Definitely. Though I wouldn’t want to have this happen too often. We could certainly try though. How long would it be?”

     “I’m not sure. Maybe two weeks? I would hate for it to be longer than that, I’d be ever so curious.”

     Two weeks? I can handle that! My body whips upright, and I wrap my arm around her waist. That feeling of relief washes over me as I take in every pleasant sensation she emits. From the floating, gentle smell of camellias in her hair, to that seductively soft silk and the warmth of her touch.

     “Oh good! I’d hate to keep such a project under wraps for too long. You know how impatient I can be.”

     “I’m sure you won’t be impatient at all. You’ll be so busy perfecting everything, you won’t have time.” She’s relaxed again, and the air is fragrant woodsmoke.

     “Of course I couldn’t give you something less than perfect! It wouldn’t be consistent with the rest of my work. And let us not forget that it is the details in art that give it life. I should be able to fit in a lot of details if you leave for that long.” This project could actually be exactly what I need to push my skills. Something that proves I’m above the caliber of other artists. As if that needs proving...

     “Well, in that case! I’ll try not to come home too soon. I wouldn’t want to rob you of your consistency. Maybe I’ll even stay away a little longer...” She’s biting her lip now, trying to smother the sweet smile that keeps promising a laugh.

     I can breathe again without the catching in my chest. “Now, now! No need to prolong things any longer than necessary. I mean, you have a life here. Between your home, family, and all these ideas of helping the refugees you keep telling me about, I’m sure you’d be homesick in no time.”

     She nudges my shoulder with her own. “You’re not including yourself in my reasons? What, do you think I won’t miss you at all?”

     I feel my face start to burn, and my heart starts pounding so hard I hear it. “Well, I would never want to presume the level of importance I hold in your life. After all, there are many other people here who hold much higher positions than me. I’m just a painter.”

     “Never _just_ a painter,” she says, gently; her smile grows brighter than the candle in the window. “At the very least, you’re an _amazing_ painter.” Her fingers draw tighter very, very quickly around mine. “But I will miss seeing you.”

     “As I will miss seeing you.” I lean over and rest my forehead on hers, and there is an instant of absolute quiet. It burns at me, though. I straight up. “Enough of these conversations. I’m tired of talking about the future. Can we talk about something new?”

     “I have a new book to write in. I thought you might like to see the cover; the embossed gold is like snake scales. See?” She runs to pull it from her desk, brings it back with a folded tissue on top. “There’s also the wrapping paper. It’s a map of Creation. Look how small we are!”

     “That’s really special. I’m sure you’ll fill it up in no time.” The paper of the map is crinkled from travel, but the oceans and mountains are plain enough, and cities as well, even though the characters spelling their names are still difficult for me to read.

     “We’re here. This is Lesser Cherak here, and that’s Greater Cherak; and the Shogunate reaches to here. These are independent principalities, though I think this one might have fallen to the Shogunate recently. Or they found some other way, but it's in the domain of the Dragons now.”

     The orange on the map where we live is dwarfed by everything else.

     “You’re telling me that this spot here is supposed to be us? This doesn’t look nearly big enough.”

     “We don’t command the same stretch of territory. Normally it’s harder to tell, but with so much of the Shogunate in red it’s much easier to compare. This is Rathess, here, where the Dragon Kings live. They’re supposed to have the best painters there, and the best craftsmen too.”

     “I’ve heard stories from some of the traders that get supplies through there. Every word they spoke made it sound more and more like fantasy. The exquisite tools available there, better than even the sable brushes, and - the paints, too, better than the mica, or silicas, or talcs. The things I could do with those tools...”

     If I were to improve my art to the level that I could impress the citizens of Rathess, I would be able to afford anything. I could enjoy luxuries ten times greater than what this tiny mansion contains.

     “Artists that work there are treated better than most nobles. More respected, even. I’d love to be counted among them.”

     I could even be considered a good suitor for Aurora...

     She looks up from the map, almost like she heard me thinking.

     “What’s the first thing you would paint, if you were there? Or would you just roll in the paints and brushes?”

     “As appealing as that might be, it would be horribly wasteful and bend the hairs on the brushes. No, no, I would do a stunning landscape of the city itself. Capture the magnificences of the place that allowed my dreams to come true.” Or the person, maybe.

     But there are so many wonders Rathess is supposed to contain. The pyramids towering high above jungle canopies to blaze in the light of Sol. The towers filled with scholars and artists, pushing the possibilities of reality. Streets covered with people immersed in the prosperity that trickles down from the Dragon Kings without hesitation. It’s magical.

     It’s too soon, after looking at all this possibility, that I have to leave. Sneaking back out of the window when I leave, I have so many ideas that I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to put them all on paper before more appear.

     I have to keep some in my head, because from the morning on through the next few days, we are ridiculously busy and I can’t sneak away to think.

     I despise these days. I feel so trapped at the studio, working with my Father and Elgar without interruption. I love art, creating and reimaging the world around me, but bringing the paint to life is so hard to do when I don’t see Aurora.

     Not that I’m incapable, or anything. There are plenty of good pieces that I make as part of the duties I’m responsible for in the studio. It’s just not as real when she’s not around. I just don’t have the constant rush of ideas that I get when we’re together. Some that fly into my mind as wildly as the north wind, others that are carried to me in her gentle words. Inspiration given voice, sending me reeling with sudden possibility.

     She told me a story once, of a dragon and a man who worked the earth around the dragon’s lair. The man had to befriend and persuade the dragon to protect the land, in the story. He had everything to gain, safety from its strength, mobility from its flight, confidence in its presence. But the dragon, the dragon needed nothing from the man. There was no great intellect, no speed or strength to offer. The man was the embodiment of lacking to such a miraculous beast, and had to do everything in his power to prove his worth.

     Aurora is everything inspiring, driving me. She’s of a line descending from the blood of the dragons, her kindness enfolds me, her mind is blessed with such insight that is deeper than any ravine I’ve ever seen.

     I have to ensure she sees my worth and that this isn’t all one sided. I have to capture nature on canvas, embody the scenes before me in ways that breathe life into the oil and paint more perfectly than even my father’s work. Anyone viewing the painting must feel a great deception unraveling before them, eyes betrayed into believing a window into a secret and pure space exists where nature thrums and pulses as in the gardens kept by the gods...

     She is my muse, and this is all I’ve amounted to since I’ve met her, a ball of nerves and impulses all designed around capturing the object of her desire.

     The nights by the river are one of the few ideas I will ever give Elgar credit for. Capturing the feeling, the bare emotion of those nights into oil and canvas, through the fish and the waters, the stars and moon - the Karun itself will sound in the ears of anyone who looks at the strokes. I’ll make it perfect...

     My father startles me by appearing by my side while I’m painting the yellowed red highlights of the metal in a still life. Elgar passed the job off to me and went to buy specific pigments for his own projects.

     He is quiet, considering my work, then nods. “The colors here are well blended, and well applied. The highlights and shadows are well balanced, and the shaping of the surface and its texture have been correctly evoked. It is very well done.”

     He rests a hand on my shoulder, as I work to look like a professional artist and not show the joy welling within me.

     “Good job, Cailen,” he says, leaving me to it.

     Fate is smiling even as I do. The world is full of such perfect possibility.

 

 

 

_One must fear only those things that have the power to harm; not other things, for they are not fearful._

 

 

_If there’s love in this life, we’re unstoppable_

_No, we can’t be defeated_

 

 

 

     She looks away, towards Hearts in the crowd, and a lapse - the bitterness and despair, tumbling into a maelstrom, beating within her breast where a heart should pulse, he feels them as acutely as if they were his own. Pain, but it brings him hope. As inevitable and inexorable as before, over time the chasm between them bridged by the sensitivity between. Acting as one, with complete understanding and knowledge of her wishes and his capability.

     When she turns back, her face is implacably full of dark humor and the moment of connection closes as swiftly as if a cleaver had divided them.

     “That does seem to be the theme for the afternoon; you are indeed thinking of many things. I will assume that she didn’t have painting in mind. So, was that the moment? Was the sun brighter, then? Did you hear the heavenly voices? Or was she simply different when you saw her again?”

     At first, the words catch in his lungs, sticking beneath his sternum. Overwhelmed by the familiarity. “You were different. Everything was different. Beatrice-”

     Her eyes gleam and the red catches the sunlight, makes him hesitate. It’s very nearly a blow to the throat, for how suffocated he suddenly feels. The full force of her anger strikes him without barrier, without filter. She slides the bag from beneath the bench with her foot, drops the orb in her hands into it.

     “I will remind you again, Virgil,” she says, the rasp in her level tone forming cold unease to drip like sweat down his back. She rises up smoothly, gathers the bag up to her arm just as gracefully. “I am not your mistress-that-was. I am Sonnet, and you would do well to remember that.”

     The people part like water around her, and by the time he’s on his feet there are several he has to push past to keep up.

     “Where are we going?” He asks, when he is beside her again. Caution as tension in his arms, his back, that he has to breathe through carefully. Such a tenuous connection, but any action could jeopardize it now. Even predestined meetings do not have preordained conclusions.

     “The speech has ended, for all intents, and I am to meet Hearts, where you will persuade her to allow you aboard her ship and I will enjoy the awkwardness between the both of you.” The humor has returned ever so slightly in her tone, but he can feel the constraint now, the falseness of her expression. Perhaps, even, the slightest bit of uncertainty in her as well?

     She leads him through several groups who divide themselves to push out of their way, and around towards the far side, where the other Undead is sliding a pen and paper neatly into a portfolio which appears to be covered in skins stitched together, then into a carrying bag.

     “What in the name of hell is he doing here again?” Her hand keeps its grip on the file as she faces him.

     “I’m _so_ glad you enjoyed the speech. Virgil is here to ask for your permission to come aboard as well for the duration of this race. Haven’t you?” Sonnet turns to look at him with a smile, as Hearts glares with eyes narrowed at him.

     “ _You_ want to come aboard the _Damned_? No. Why?” Her voice carries, sharp enough to cut across the rumbling of the crowd.

     He crosses his arms. She’s small enough that he could just push his luck and board anyway, but Sonnet is watching, and in theory this captain is her friend. “She’s going with you, and I’m going with her.”

     The intensity of her glare grows impossibly. “ _Why_?”

     “Because I’m a Lunar, and she’s-” _my Solar_ , crosses his mind, but he catches himself before he says it. Sonnet is close to anger still, and trying to persuade both of them at the same time is overwhelming. “Mate to my spark,” he finishes, very carefully.

     Hearts laughs so hard and long that it rocks her backwards. When she catches a breath, she points a finger at Sonnet, cackling.

     “ _YOU_ ACTUALLY _HAVE_ A _LUNAR_!!!!”

     Sonnet rolls her eyes. “Yes, apparently I have. Enjoy your laughter now; I can wait ‘til one finds you.”

     “I _will_ enjoy my laughter!” Hearts says gleefully, between explosive gales of laughter.

     Perhaps this means fate has begun already to work change for her, an integration of new ideas. Perhaps not. Sonnet glances around the square, waiting for the mockery to subside.

     “Well?” she asks, when Hearts has mostly relented to making hearing conversation again. “Are you going to let him board?” She sounds bored more than annoyed, her left hand lightly tracing the strap of the bag up and down, from her shoulder to the pouch and back again.

     “No,” Hearts says, coming abruptly back to normal speech. “He’s a Lunar. He’ll break my ship.”

     “I _am_ going with her,” he says, watching Sonnet as well, in case that particular battle resurfaces. Sonnet, whose disinterest in the topic is palpable while she watches the people pass. Estimating strengths and weaknesses, most likely, weapons to turn to her advantage should she choose.

     “We already have an understanding,” Hearts points at her case files. “You and I _do not_. Which means you will not be coming aboard.”

     “You can change your ‘understanding’. But I am not leaving her side again.”

     “That is not how we write contracts —” Hearts’ voice is beginning to grow louder again.

     Sonnet sighs. “We’re wasting time. I will take responsibility for his taking care of your ship, if it will suit you,” she nods at Hearts and looks to him. “And you will not damage the Damned, or there will be a penalty to me, which I suspect will serve as a penalty to you. Is this agreeable?”

     There’s a moment’s silence, before Hearts offers a hand to Sonnet. When their hands touch, in pledge, a moment of absolute, blinding darkness and the sense of millions of unclean primordial eyes watching the binding oath causes every fiber of Virgil’s being to shudder. For the duration of the oath, the deadly darkness around Sonnet is apparent to the naked eye and a bloodied sigil shines at her brow.

     It’s a perfect mirror to the mark of Sol that blessed hers before.

     Then, the moment is gone, the sigil fading from her face.

     “Excellent. We’ll be on our way then,” she says, and begins to lead the way without another word.

     Hearts groans in disgust, but takes her bag and picks her scythe up. “You really won’t want to hurt the _Damned_ ,” she says, conspiratorially to him. “I have a whole list of delightful new torture ideas I’m just waiting to try on someone. Anyway, you’ll have to share a room. I’m using the others. For _stuff_. And keep your tail out of the way when we’re sailing, or I’ll cut it off.”

     The ship itself is easy to see from a distance. The sails are ghostly, barely there in the daylight; the sides are made of what looks like steel, until he sees the writhing and screaming faces bubbling to the surface of the metal but no farther before they are subsumed once more.

     Sonnet is far enough ahead that she reaches the gangway first. The woman she was watching earlier, the Solar with her teal hair still perfectly in place, stands at the bottom, waiting.

     Hearts frowns. “What does _that_ want?”

     Sonnet turns, as if she can hear us from even that far, and gestures to Hearts clearly before she begins to board.

     He can hear Hearts grinding her teeth as they draw close. “And it’s a Deceiver.”

     “You are the Captain of this vessel?” the woman calls out when they are close enough for decorum’s sake to permit it.

     “What do you want?” Hearts fires back.

     “I’d like to offer you a business opportunity. In exchange for travelling aboard this ship with you, I can offer you a fortune of business contacts and engagements. Shall we have a word aside?”

     “Oh. Virgil?” Sonnet smiles, looking over the ship railing down at him. The ship’s name is blazoned beneath her feet.

      _Cry of the Damned_.

      _Of course_. The emphasis is already making him tired. _Because what else would it be_?

     “Yes,” he answers, looking up and trying to ignore the warning sense which has returned as something like seasickness.

     “I’ve thought of a way for you to prove to me that you’re serious about your devotion. We have only met today; a test of your intent would reassure me greatly. Will you do this?”

     The skip of his heart and burning unease combine, but if it’s possible to settle this matter so soon, be certain in at least that respect.... “Do you promise?”

     She leans on the railing as comfortable as a cat in a sunny ledge, resting her chin on her palm. “I promise to you that should you perform this one task for me without question and to completion, I will be assured of your inclinations and determination in regards to my safety and interests. I promise even to answer questions you might have about my existence. Will that suit?”

     He tastes bile. Destiny be damned, this dealing is happening quickly enough to raise an alarm. But one action - one action to guarantee a foothold. A foothold and a promise for further talk.

     “Yes,” he says, before he loses any more ground than he has already.

     “Yes?” she prompts, her hair sliding over her bare shoulder, fluttering in the wind.

 _Maybe it won’t be so bad?_ “Yes, I will do what you ask in return for your promise.”

     He reads the lethal curiosity, the peaked interest as she considers him, something foreign disquieting her before she resolves herself and her emotions still into invisibility once more. “My, my, Virgil,” she says, quietly enough he has to strain to hear her. “I didn’t truly anticipate you’d agree so readily. We’re playing for high stakes, indeed.” She pushes off from the railing. “You will catch up, I’m sure. The task I would have from you should be simple for a man of your talents. You will go to all of the stables used for this competition, and you will break the legs of all of our competitor's horses. When you have done this, we will see what follows.”

 

 

 

 

_As the days go by the night's on fire_

_Tell me would you kill to save a life_

_Tell me would you kill to prove you're right_

 

 

_Through me the way into the grieving city,_

_through me the way into eternal sorrow,_

_through me the way among the lost people._

_Justice moved my high maker;_

_Divine power made me,_

_Highest wisdom, and primal love._

_Before me were no things created_

_Except eternal ones, and I endure eternal._

_Abandon every hope, you who enter._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's DIvine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics.
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from:  
> Waiting for Blood (Songwriters: Tim Bergling / Simon John Aldred / Salem Lars Al Fakir / Martijn Garritsen / Vincent Fred Pontare)
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.


	6. Per altra via, per altri porti verrai a piaggia, non qui, per passare: piu lieve legno convien che ti porti.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cailen and Aurora experience dark nights of the soul; Virgil takes action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exalted takes place in a world following a violent collapse of a Golden Age, where the god-empowered beings are slowly making a resurgence. (Glossary and too many notes at the end)

     Imprisonment doesn’t suit me at all. There it is, I’ve said it. 

     I’ve been set up in the corner cell at the far end of the prison. The walls down here are coarse and sharp, like they used mortar with ceramic shards mixed into it. They must have haphazardly clumped together the lumpy, jagged mixture and stuck it together to make the walls  _ this _ uneven and curved. Especially making sure all the sharp shards stab into unsuspecting innocents who try to lean up against them! The thick wooden lattice bars at the front of the cell are sturdy, but unlike the rest of the walls in the House above they’re not smoothed. Probably to promote splinters in anyone foolish enough to push at the wood. The floor itself is also purposefully coarse. Someone must have thought, “Let’s throw some gravel in the mix with the mortar so there will always be prickles pushing into the skin no matter how a person chooses to lay. It’ll be great fun watching them writhe around in physical discomfort!”

     Animals.

     My clothes offer next to no protection; I’ve taken to curling up in a ball, huddled in a corner. Even with the material I have wadded up against the wall, I have to keep from shivering or moving too much so I don’t get prodded or cut. The corner at least helps me keep me warm, which is enough for me to sleep. At least long enough until I fall over, but I’m getting better at staying upright.

     I’ve never regretted spending money on art instead of clothes until now. Currently, I’m heatedly jealous of Aurora’s wardrobe. Everything she touches is colorful, warm and soft. Covered in ornate stitching and grand designs, but most importantly of all,  _ layered. _

     Somewhere between artistic appreciation of the colors chosen to grace her figure, and the distraction of her smile, her eyes, her touch, I sometimes forget my current circumstance.

     I’m still not sure how long I’ve been down here. It was two weeks when I climbed to her window which stood dark without a candle, when Destiny turned an ill-advised moment of thought into an attack by the guards which landed me here. Guards who won’t speak to me either. 

     The one attempt at escaping I’ve made ended with a knot on my head and fits of dizziness. Gaia forbid I allow such an opportunity to slip by, but I made it past two guards - Duncan? and someone else. In all the confusion, I reached the stairs, saw sunlight at the top, tasted the fresh air! But I lost count of how many guards there were down here.

     Halfway up the stairs, I heard an odd whirling noise followed by a rather painful force constricting itself around my legs. Needless to say, I was less than capable of running, and the sudden lack of momentum led to a quick and forceful fall. 

     A fall broken by my head on the third step from the top. 

     The  _ third. step. _

     I was apparently knocked out, because I woke again back in the cell once more. The knot on my head has been a constant and considerable reminder of how painful failure can be. 

     Perhaps I’ll just go back to dreaming. 

     Time passes away, as it always must, but I have even less of an idea of how long I’ve been here. Two weeks since she was here, I was caught. But here, everything is the same. Same damp, same rough and round. Same dim lit lamp that is never changed. Same bland guards wearing bland armor. Same dark, encroaching emptiness. Nothing is ever going to change. Nothing is ever going to happen. 

     I wake from a doze to a clatter and clashing of feet and voices from the courtyard above, and a hubbub of unpacking and movement back into the house. 

     Barely has the din from the gateway subsided when there are heavy footsteps that echo down the stairs into the dimness, and Lord Aphelion himself, resplendent in his traveling armor with full black scales and gold details storms into view. His face is twisted with the strangest mixture of relief and bitterness, but his mouth is compressed so tightly that individual whitenesses from each of his teeth almost mark his lips.

     The guards all bow low.

     “What exactly is all this about?” He pulls his riding gloves from his hand in jerking motions, one finger at a time. 

     Duncan, who is apparently the Captain, answers him. “We caught him trespassing, my lord. We kept him here until your return. What would you have us do with him?”

     “Where exactly was he when you found him?” He speaks hurriedly, enunciating very clearly every consonant and biting off the ends of his words. His interest is vague and slightly disgusted, looking at Duncan and not me, considering a problem that is beyond his particular curiosity or patience.

     “We caught him in the private garden. He seems to have fallen trying to climb inside. When we caught him, he was on the gravel just within the walls.”

     I was leaving, actually. The sturdy bamboo I’d trusted for so long to be my ladder over the wall collapsed under my foot in a cowardly moment and I fell. They wouldn’t have even noticed if the moon had been anything other than waxing. And when I turned to squeeze under the deck, they were already coming from inside the house. 

     “That seems to merit the usual punishment. Do you have anything to say in your defense?” Lord Aphelion’s foot taps impatiently and his fingers twitch, but he almost seems to be listening for something outside the room to happen, even though none of the bustle comes in this direction. 

     “My Lord.” I fold over my knees, ensuring I’m as low as possible with my forehead forcibly resting in the grimey, gritty, damp prison floor. I may not be very clean, but I still know how to respect my superiors. The coolness of the floor actually feels nice on the lump on my head. Who would have thought. 

     "I was merely on a delivery, and was caught in the midst of having tried to make my exit. I had no malice or ill will in visiting your estate, my lord.” 

     He snorts. “Interesting. He’s made fools of you all, if that’s true. Well, dock a month’s pay from each of the guards on duty, and send him on his way after twenty strokes with the heavy bamboo. Perhaps he will remember not to trespass again.” He turns on his heel, pushing his gloves under one of the straps at his waist. “Duncan, follow me. I have another task for you.” Without looking back he stalks up the stairs and out into the sunlight. The door he throws open crashes into the wall before bouncing back and vibrating slightly as it swings closed again.

     ... did he say  _ twenty _ strokes? He couldn’t possibly have meant that. I mean, I am merely a  _ child _ . All I did was get caught on his property. It’s not like he knew I was here to see Aurora. 

     No. No, that was clearly a mistake. There’s no way I’m going to be flogged for these transgressions, no way at all. 

     I mean, he is the local lord, but  _ surely _ he wouldn’t stoop to doing something so utterly despicable. Not to a humble and mostly honest young artist, who prior to this day has served his lord’s wishes to the letter. No, this is a mistake. Aurora will make this right, she will make her father see reason.

     What if Aurora isn’t with him, thought?

     A long silence passes with that thought. A long, painful silence, as if existence itself is suffering under the weight. 

     She did leave, already. How long has it been? Wouldn’t she have come back, if she was planning to? 

     And, if she is back and knows that I am down here, well. That would imply a great deal. 

     The weight grows, and I find myself running my fingers up and down my sides, feeling my ribs where they slightly protrude from my skin. My tightly bound skin, which is barely staying to the shape it’s in now. The same soft, vulnerable skin that might be used as its own form of canvas for a rather enthusiastic deliverer of Justice. 

     I wonder if they will take as long dolling out my punishment as I took painting the river for Aurora. That day was awfully peaceful. 

     My skin feels weaker by the moment and the small veil of hope I have for intervention is being swept away, revealing all the small pains and worries that it so eloquently hid.

     Maybe this is why I should spend less time daydreaming.

     Or perhaps this is just the natural end that fate has for its favorite artists.

     The door opens again, and the remaining bile in my stomach tries to escape as unsuccessfully as I did. 

     Only, the door isn’t opened with the same force as it was the last time. The heavy steps are slower, this time, perhaps anticipating what’s to come?

     But... when Lord Aphelion comes into view again the sunlight comes with him. His face is bright and dazzled as if he’s been staring directly above at noon in full summer, but something is strange about the relaxed quality of his jaw, his shoulders have dropped low until they droop as leaves after a heavy storm. 

     And then — Aurora follows in his footsteps, unsmiling saying nothing, just fanning herself. She looks to me, meets my gaze again after so long. There is a radiance about her, a nimbus of celestial light.

     Her eyes are blinding.

     “I have had time to reconsider my decision,” Lord Aphelion says. His words are slurred, the sibilants hissing out lazily at the end of his breath. “Perhaps I have been hasty.”

     He doesn’t look at her, when she reaches out her hand and lightly settles it on his shoulder; but then, he doesn’t have to. “I remand the boy to my daughter’s teaching. He may learn more in her service than if we simply turn him away. You will see to it that he is made fit for duty, then send him to her. We will inform his father, and see that he is adequately compensated for the lack of labor this will incur. Additionally, the guards in question will receive half-pay, instead of none. I had not adequately weighed the effect upon their families.” 

     Aurora’s eyes don’t leave mine, even when her father turns to her; but then she allows him to lead her from the room. She looks back over her shoulder to me twice, before I can’t see her anymore.

     There is a long moment of stunned silence as all of the light fades gently from the corners and the walls. The dinginess of the structure creeps in ashamedly to reign once more.

     “Gavin,” says another guard, Heshe, as if the wind has been knocked out of him, almost as an afterthought. 

     “...Yeah?”

     “I hadn’t realized Lady Aurora had also returned.”

     “Me neither,” says Gavin. The room is so still that dust motes are floating upwards against gravity in surprise.

     Heshe nods several times, considering this statement. “She certainly seems to have grown up while she was gone.”

     Gavin shakes his head a few times, blinking. “That she has.”

     The sound of Sage outside squawking at someone breaks the spell, and the two lurch into action, trying discreetly to shake their sense back into themselves with half-stifled jerks of their heads. After a few dazed expressions and exchange of awkward glances, Heshe shuffles forward and unlocks the cell.

     The  _ chu-clunk _ noise of the lock disengaging rings in my ears. I might be dreaming again, hoping to wake up to this moment, only to find myself back in the dirt and grit.

     Heshe is holding the door open for me. 

     Let me reiterate. Heshe is holding the door  _ open _ for  _ me. _ Nobody holds doors for me on my best day, delivering masterpieces to their front door, let alone when I’m covered in filth and drabbles of half-crusted blood from being imprisoned some number of days. I stare at him, still grappling with the idea of what is happening when I hear the main door open again. Gavin is standing there with a small mound of clothes, the few possessions I entered with. They seem to have received better care than what I’ve endured.  

     The wheels begin to turn, concepts clicking together, and I take confident steps out of the cell. 

     I knew Aurora would never let this slide, and what happened? She saved me! I should never have doubted. Of course Fate looks after its favorite artist. 

     The elation carries well over the bafflement of the guards when I reclaim my belongings. I strip down, redress myself unashamed of my condition. I mean, sure, I’m thinner overall, but I’m sure I’ll start to regain that weight the next time I see Aurora. She always surprises me with treats from her family’s more extravagant dinners. They always have extra food and it’s more than anything I’d have at home. I have to tighten my sash a bit more when refastening everything to my body, but I don’t mind.

     My muse is back!  _ and  _ just saved me from the brink of devastation. What do I have to complain about?

     My smile only grows wider, stretching the tight muscles in my face into the forgotten shapes, and they lead me up to the surface. The sky is a dusky sunset of orange, red, and purple with the sun far over the walls from here. 

     Weather as it is, I don’t think it’s been a full season, but I’m never one to track such inconsequential matters. It’s always more important as an artist to capture the present, than the future or the past. 

     I have never felt so at ease and pleased with my life. I mean, sure. I’ve just escaped languishing for an unspecified amount of time, and eerily close to experiencing first hand what it feels like to be flayed like a fish, but my muse saved me. 

_      Saved me. _

     How many people can say that the inspiration of their life has saved them from anything more than mediocrity and boredom? My muse is beauty personified, commanding authority, and exuding true... true....

     Blast. What does she exude? The whole scene feels like such a blur. I remember her perfectly, but the details around are so fuzzy. She looks so much the same, yet all I envision is complete and inexpressible blinding perfection. Not even that explanation does justice to the moment, though I suppose my words rarely do. 

     Walking home seems more quiet than normal, but that makes sense given the time of the day. Still, the sound of people’s feet padding about, shuffling their belongings and retiring to their homes, welcomes me back to the still silence of my home. 

     How would I capture that moment? Perhaps in a visual medium. I could use oils, maybe, or maybe the watercolors to blur the edges of everything unimportant, everything not her.... I’ll have to borrow a few paints from Father, and....

     The thought stops me dead in my tracks.

     Sol’s teeth, I forgot. I have to tell Father, and Elgar, and I didn’t even... 

_      oh no oh no oh no _

     They’re going to be absolutely livid. I mean, I’ve been gone for.... months? weeks?  _ several months _ ? Whatever the time passed, the guards would have notified them eventually of my arrest. No doubt this has already caused a fair share of disparagement to the practice. Father is going to be so upset over the lost commissions. 

     They’re going to be fuming hotter than dragon’s breath. 

     What am I going to do?

     My heart drops from the heavens back to my chest so fast it hurts. 

     I could stay out, tonight! Just sleep in the woods, and bathe fast in the river. That way I won’t see Father until things have settled. I can just make things better, by... by.... 

     There’s no way to make this better. I’ve already brought home enough damage through my actions. I can’t do that again by hiding. And I don’t have enough stamina to run from this forever.

     One light shines in the shop. I open the door, and step inside.

     Perhaps it won’t be so bad? 

     Maybe he’ll just be grateful to see his lost prodigy of a son again?

     The clay flask shatters instantly against the wall as it arcs past my head. The pieces resemble nothing of the once delicate shape the held. 

     “ _ Were you even thinking? _ ” He looks exhausted, the shop in disarray. Footsteps on the floor above mean Elgar’s heard too. 

     I’m too ashamed to think, the full magnitude of my actions flashing through my mind. The room is silent. 

     I feel the air thicken between us. When I can look up, actually meet his eyes, they are hard, fixed on my ever shrinking presence. 

     I’m choking. I want to speak. I  _ need _ to speak. I need to tell him how sorry I am. I need to make him understand why I did this. That it was for the right reasons. That I didn’t mean to hurt him. 

     His eyes are still locked on mine. I still haven’t spoken. Elgar isn’t in the room. 

     The silence claws at us further, deepening wounds that are already here. I feel his pain, but there’s no way for me to stop it, to mend it, to halt the flow, to start the healing. 

     I still can’t talk. 

     Elgar slams the door open, staring at me, panting. I smell the alcohol from here. 

     Father’s words break the silence with such force that it feels like a mountain has been dropped on my shoulders. 

     “I thought you’d be better than this.” 

     He turns his back, pushes past Elgar and returns to his room. 

     I stand alone in the dying candlelight, facing my brother.

     “I told you to stay away from her,” is all that he says, voice creaking and he scrubs his hand over his face before he also turns away to go upstairs. 

     The candle gutters out. The silence presses on me in the dark.

_      What have I done? _

  
  
  
  


_ Strange languages, horrible tongues, words of pain, accents of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and sounds of blows with them, _

_ made a tumult that turns forever in that air darkened without time, like the sand when a whirlwind blows. _

  
  
  
  


_ It feels like everyday stays the same _

_ It's dragging me down, and I can't pull away _

_ So here I go again _

_ Chasing you down again _

_ Why do I do this? _

  
  
  
  
  


     The screams of horses and men alike echo off the buildings. The blood in the air frightens the rest of the horses, the ones tied at the outskirts, to stampede away, stranding their riders. Those are the lucky ones. 

     He is covered with blood and horse entrails in some places, crusting between the scales on his tail and arms. 

     Distantly, he feels her revel in the sensed carnage.

     He follows.

  
  
  
  


_ I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies _

_ I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife _

_ Offer me that deathless death _

_ Good God, let me give you my life _

  
  
  


_ The heavens reject them so as not to be less beautiful, nor does deep Hell receive them, for the wicked would have some glory from them. _

  
  
  


     The door to Calla’s room opens. 

     I’m not entirely sure what I expected, but even the stillness is devoid of life. Her little bed is still made up perfectly. The bedside is coated in a thick layer of dust, and I smell something like a dry mold. The fireplace still holds the ashes of the last fire in this room. We burned her doll when she died, in case the plague lingered inside waiting for other arms to pull it close to the heart. 

     I sit in the middle of the room, set the light beside me on the floor to watch the shadows rise. My father’s gifts to her; she was his favorite, and he spoilt her rotten with it all. Beneath the table by the window, behind a leg, I see the remains of a dessicated lemon.

     Calla was supposed to take our house name after I was safely married, but as I remember all she wanted to do was catch frogs and determine how snakes existed. 

     We wore white for three years after she was gone. I’ve lost that fear of ill-wishing or bringing death on myself with color by now. 

     Her hair was nearer to red than mine, her eyes like father’s, her smile quickest. She was too sunny to hold any shadow, my mother said. 

     I’m holding them for her, now.

     “I married,” it’s nearly a whisper. “He heard about you, once.”

     My stomach churns, and I smell blood again. The air is thick with remembered peonies and jasmine, petals in the waters placed there. The last is... lotus, for eternity. They float, to keep hands smooth and soft. My hands, which are small, too small, I-

     It rises, the bile; someone walking down the hall, I’m shaking and freezing and burning and afraid, the door open at my back suddenly threatening and I have to push myself to my feet, push the door closed as quietly as I can. I sink down, suffocating with my back to it. 

     No one is coming in. The nightmare of the golden city is miles and miles away.

     “Calla,” I’m panting, like an animal. Perhaps this is what dying feels like. “Calla, they all say I survived. That I saved someone. Calla, I can’t feel things, it’s all stone. I- I think I made him love me. And it killed him.”

     I retch, only barely manage to retain my composure. 

     “His name was Agillens.” He will only be the mad king, in the histories. His name which he is no longer called by, nor will ever be again. The Blooded King, who thought he could build a tower to worship the Unconquered Sun.

     “Mother lied again, Calla.” Shudders run through me, up and down. I think I’m coming apart. 

     Calla laid quiet in her bed, skin burst with sores and pox marks, then. More bumps than any of the toads she ever found. She only let me stay with her, because I could breathe without the loudness making her cry. Her eyes were dark.

     Mother didn’t come. She sent other people. I should have expected it this time. Blackmail, bribery, persuasion, promises, lies. I should have. But I didn’t.

     “I will never forgive her.” 

     And my father. My father, who killed him. 

     When the door broke, Agillens stood, back still covered in sweat where we had been lying together just moments before, between me and the door.

     Agillens’ blood burst all at once across my face. I stood almost naked before my father and the nobles, blood staining the fabric covering me as well, and I ran to Agillens instead of them, and I saw my father condemn me for it. They said they were protecting me. I should believe them, that they would do anything to keep me safe.  

     It doesn’t even hurt, like it used to. I’m just...

     My hand has clenched so tightly on the frame of the bedside table it has stiffened from the tension into spasming and cramping.

     I should sleep, I know; but I’m here, telling my dead sister of other dead. I know Cailen won’t be here tonight and even if he would have been, I can’t.... 

     I don’t want anyone to see this, this collapse.

     His family will have worried for him, of course. His father is more focused, more driven, but less distracted. His father must be glad to have him home.

     My father hasn’t said a word to me since I made him reverse his decision. 

     “They hurt him, Calla. It would have been much worse if-” If I hadn’t come back, to see Cailen, kneeling in the dirt with a swollen bruise on his forehead and blacked eyes, which I’m told happened when he tried to escape. To see him looking at me, as the guards have, as my father has, as everyone has, with the same confusion and silence.

     His face.... even colored with dried blood, dust, grime, seeing his face brought life from the surreal to stable ground.

     “I can keep him safe, now. I think. I claimed him for my household, and if issue is taken up with him, I can- I  _ will _ intervene. They will not deny me after...”

     I have no idea how any of this has happened. Today was full of golden light, and commands. I have power, a dowry that would amaze half a kingdom, there are trade routes, and promised prosperity from a newly stabilized region, and all this was nothing. I told my father that he would let Cailen go, that he was mine and that he would allow no further injury because it was my wish upon my return, that there would be no more death and no more punishment.

     He obeyed. 

     Perhaps the bloody hands in this house also feel guilt. Perhaps even regret. I hope so; I cannot bear to think otherwise.

     Tears overwhelm me. I am lost for some time to the oblivion compounding my loss, my fear.

     I am lying on the floor, watching the candle burn lower in the lamp. 

_      What happens when it dies? Where does it go? _

     There’s a quiet tapping at the door. 

     “My lady?” Hashi’s voice is calm, gentle. Familiar. “My Aurora, will you allow me to enter?

     I slowly roll onto my knees, with weak arms, and rise to open the door for him. Alone among everyone I’ve seen today, he does not bow. He wraps his arms around me, holding me while I catch my breath. It is the first time I have allowed anyone to touch me since I came back.

     “I am relieved you are home, my Aurora. Are you still speaking with your sister?”

     “No,” I say. “No, there’s no one left, you see.”

     His arms tighten, then relax. “My lady, I would like to bring you to your rooms. Will you permit this?”

     At my nod, he bends and picks me up as easily as if I was one of his grandchildren. Over his shoulder I watch the candle die, and Calla’s rooms fall dark.

     He has brought the bathing tub into my room, even though it is before dawn. He tests the water and the softness of the padding to prevent my catching on the rough edges and metal sides. They pour chamomile, lavender, passionflower, a few rose petals, just as they have always done when I was younger and just as distressed. I am grateful now. 

     “When you have finished, my Aurora, you must remember to sleep. I’m close to hand outside, and Egret as well. Let the water work its spell, then to bed.”

     The water is so hot that I slip away as easily as the dust from the road. 

     The clock ticks, as ever; the fire grumbles and crumbles and flames to red and white, lighting my room enough to read by. 

     I wrap my arms around my knees, hug them to me. My fingers are wound so tightly together that I know they are connected to my heart. When they loosen and fall apart again, so will I.

     Meanwhile, the flames and water beckon sleep to find me.

     Agillen’s eyes were gold.

     My fingers loosen at the thought, I replace it almost immediately. 

     Cailen. Cailen’s eyes are amber, warm and familiar, so very alive and hopeful. He will come to the house officially. I will take part in council, to make the changes that I know to be necessary and create a stronger Cherak than my parents can. Cailen will help me. We must change the way things are. We cannot continue to be as backwards as we have been, until now.

     I will bring us into the light. All I need to do is tell the story of how it will be, and how we will make it so. They will listen and we will make it truth.

     I won’t build a golden city of my own, but... maybe I will create one that builds itself. 

     No more, tonight. 

     I can’t think anymore. I am so tired, so tired, but something pushes inside me, something that rages at the idea that I might rest. 

     My fingers slip.

     I have felt this every day since, this alone, this obsession. Any sense of failure, faltering, letting the facade crack, it pushes forward, bubbles through, overwhelms me. I feel as if drugged; but everything becomes so clear, stops rushing past me in madness. I have a purpose, a direction, people who need me, who I can help. My skills are of use.

     It makes everything golden, bright as summer.

     Even as I think it, my hands slip apart beneath the water, it bleeds through my veins and the room brightens brighter than the fire. I turn my head and nearly blind myself in the mirror in the corner.

     The edges of the room fade to soft shadows in the beaten silver, but the corners I see are lit brighter in sharp relief. The spiders flee. 

     In the mirror, I see a mark on my forehead, gleaming. At first it seems a perfect circle, bright and beautiful as the sun. But as I look closer, I see the double circle. The outside as stunning as the white ring of light bursting from a total eclipse, the air chilled and land dimming itself for miles. A burst of white of the sun, and a ring of light as far as the eye could see on the horizon. Gloried in the skies, the most brilliant I’ve ever seen Ignis, encompassing all. I remember weeping at the moment; Heaven and Creation and all for the moment, with myself in line with celestial unity.   

     I do not recognize myself now; the emblem flares and grows brighter and brighter, the water picking up the light so that I bathe in the reflected light. 

     I see my eyes.

 

_           The poet said she turn’d toward heav’n her face, but not _

_           That seeing God she found her voice was wholly stilled _

_           By pow’r divine, unconquered son of words untaught. _

 

     “Sol,” I hear my voice, see my lips tremble with the word.

     But I am alone in my rooms, in my bath, and the light of the Unconquered Sun comes from my eyes, my face, from me.

     I do not understand. 

 

_      Once upon a time, a man whose eyes were as golden as the sun built a city in a day, and in a month he moved the ocean itself to work for the people.  _

 

_      Once upon a time, there was a woman who loved her wife and their children so deeply that when their town came under attack, she stood against the invaders and killed every single one of the hundreds of armed soldiers by herself. They said that she had a brand upon her face and that the sound of her voice, calling the war cry of her people, traveled for miles around like thunder. _

 

     There have always been tales; and I suppose I  have heard reports of events taking place which were so unbelievable that I credited only the part and not the whole. 

     Even Rathess, full of the legends of the Dragon Kings, is so fantastical it is difficult to even imagine the size of, much less the dragons themselves. The Chosen of the Sun are even more highly exalted than the dragons, standing far above the smaller gods that even I have seen upon occasion. 

     I cannot believe what I see, even as it moves me to tears. There is beauty in such a promise. There is a future.

     How can no one have told me? This must be what is happening when I see their eyes soften, and the corners of their mouths turn up just a little without them realizing. 

     This must be why Cailen could not help but stare, why my father looked as though I had hit him upon his head with a heavy weapon. Why the revolutionaries obeyed without a word when I told them to lay down their weapons, and why, so far, I have had no arguments. This must be why Sage is now treating me with as much deference as she treats my mother.

     When this happens to me, no one will stand in my way. And I can ensure that everyone has what they need, so that no one else has to find themselves alone, afraid, anguished. It will be the best I can do to make up for everything that has caused this miracle.

     I will have to find advisors. I will change how the power dynamic works, so that my father does not have the only say in what happens. I will set up a panel of counselors, one for each division of labor, and they will have subordinates who can organize relief where it is needed, make decisions reasonably and make certain that along the chain, the system itself has redundancies to protect those who are vulnerable. But surely they will come forward, or I can pick them out. 

     I break away from my own gaze. I need to plan.

     I stand and the water streams down, hair heavy behind me and swaying enough that I can feel it. I step across the room, there, there, take my paper and my pens, I lie before the fire as the water dries on my skin and begin listing, and listing. My reference books are still here, and I pull them. There are years and years of successful and failed regimes, democracies, autocracies and monarchies, oligarchies and republics and I write the best of them down and begin to design my own plans. There are many people I already know would fit well into the roles I need, and there are clear places for people I haven’t met yet, who will step into a detailed position of purpose. 

     There is still a place for my House, but we will raise up those beneath us to higher and higher heights. Perhaps we will be subsumed entirely, but perhaps that is a necessary step to reach for something longer lasting, better. 

     I hear the singing of the celestial spheres, perfectly harmonious; everything perfectly aligned, and I am a part of something greater. It is beautiful, so beautiful. 

     Tears of joy come to my eyes, but I brush them away and write faster and faster, the words streaming into something that can hold its own against any challenge. I’m certain.

     How perfect it all is.

 

_ Tears streaming down your face _

_ I promise you I will learn from all my mistakes _

_ oh and the tears streaming down your face _

 

_ I am Beatrice who cause you to go; I come from the place where I long to return; love has moved me and makes me speak. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dante's DIvine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics.
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from:   
> *Over and Over*  
> Songwriters: Gavin Brown / Neil Sanderson / Adam Gontier / Brad Walst / Barry Stock
> 
> *Take Me To Church*  
> Songwriters: Andrew Hozier-Byrne
> 
> *Fix You*  
> Songwriters: Christopher Anthony John Martin / Guy Rupert Berryman / Jonathan Mark Buckland / William Champion
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Lunar-Solar Bond - A canonical deep tie between specific Solars and Lunars; this offers a Lunar greater protection against external unwanted influences, and backing when they act to follow their Solar's will; acting against their will comes at a penalty. The Solar also benefits from having the support and protection for and from their shortcomings. This bond remains over many lifetimes, even if the Solar has become an Abyssal.
> 
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Dante's DIvine Comedy & the Exalted Tabletop Game are at the root of this particular fic. Quotes from the Comedy are used as titles, and also as sectional commentary, intermixed with song lyrics. 
> 
> The translated version I have used and am most partial to is Robert Durling's edition; this being said, Project Gutenberg has a solid translation online for free for anyone interested :D
> 
> Song lyrics included in this section come from: *Never Forget You*  
> [Songwriters: Uzoechi Osisioma Emenike / Zara Maria Larsson / Arron Carl Davey]
> 
>  
> 
> A (MUCH TOO) Brief Glossary of other words if you need it, O Reader!  
> Invictus Sol/Sol Invictus/Ignis Divine/Sol/the Unconquered Sun - A sun god who basically Jesus-d his way into driving Creation into being a place for light and life to succeed in against the powers of the Primordial beings who made it for their entertainment and benefit only.
> 
> The Five Maidens (of various things) - they direct and administer/bureaucrat the way fate is created and enacted, and have their own chosen (who do not appear in this story); they are almost as powerful as Sol.
> 
> Autochthon - a living planet sized mechanical mechanic, who was Primordial. He is order, technology, science and obscurity -- a world apart, with his own peoples and chosen.
> 
> Gaia - embodied creation. The world everyone lives on and also one of the few Primordials to turn her back on the rest. She does not have chosen, but she provides the landscape for all living beings to exist on through her care. She had a former lover among the Primordials (who did not rebel) but as of the rebellion she is lovers with Luna, Incarnae of the Lunars (shapechangers) and who also is the Moon. [Yay reasons for Earth and Moon to be chill with one another]
> 
> Dragons - Dragonblooded have powers based in the four elements, and their powers are lineage based as opposed to god chosen. Different elements support different skill sets.
> 
> Dragon Kings - The Reptilian race first made by the Primordials who left behind vast structures in the time before the Solars
> 
> Orichalcum - Like gold, but more durable and blessed by Sol.  
> Jade - Jade comes in different colors which give it different powers, attuned with Dragonblooded most of all.
> 
> Essence/Motes - magic or mana force which fuels spells or charms
> 
> Dawn/Zenith/Twilight/Night/Eclipse//Moonshadow/Day/Daybreak/Midnight/Dusk - Different Castes or classes of skill sets the pc can choose from but also known as iterations or aspects of the god or being which has Chosen them to become an avatar of their power.
> 
> Wyld - The constant, ever changing boundaries to the Abyss and to Creation, where fairy folk exist and play in, causing havoc and madness when they come in contact with other beings.
> 
> Demon/Anathema - Anathema is what Dragonblooded call other exalted (because stuff reasons history, the book does explain it better if you're curious); they see Solars and other exalts as incredibly dangerous and (rightly) as one of the main causes if not the main cause, of the collapse of the former golden age of the world.


End file.
